What alternative funding options did you explore?

There is some deferred maintenance tenant want me to take care of in the bathroom and kitchen in a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom house. The work should take about 4-5 days. The work is pretty extensive so I want tenant to move...

Definitely the most popular places are midwest and southeast.

Some alternatives that I have considered is purchasing a single-family home, living in it for a year as a primary and then moving and renting it out, or looking for a single-family home with a decent-sized basement and converting that into a unit.

Unlike the stock market, you can also use leverage, which could significantly increase your ROI.The bottom line is that you can get better returns investing in alternatives (real estate or otherwise) and more control investing in real estate (you have zero control over the stock market).

Look for some alternative financing so I don’t have to sell investments and incur capital gains tax.5. 🤷🏻‍♂️?

So diversification of asset classes with alternative uncorrelated assets is probably wise, and perhaps carrying lower leverage on STR/LTR going forwards. 

So I tried and succeeded in alternative strategy; I started with smaller commercial multifamily deals that I could do myself.

Not sure if it would make sense for you specifically, would need to know a bit more about your situation and everything, some people we help that are looking to consolidate debt consider refinancing to lump all their payments together since a primary residence lending option has lower rates than some of the alternatives. 

I block off super popular dates (like 4th of July week), then unblock them 2-3 weeks beforehand with much higher prices than I would have gotten if I'd left them open 6 months ahead.