This question never has a "best" answer, only best for your situation!

Nat, question to you.What happens if the tenant has like 50K - 100K or more in their checking / savings / retirement accounts?

My question for the group is would my hours as a contractor also count twoards the needed 750 hours?

@Michael OverallYour question is good.

I'd be happy to connect further regarding your questions about more specific and nuanced details. 

hopefully your inspection went well. wish i would have seen your post earlier i would have been happy to help you out with your inspection. but to answer your question, there really isn't anything you need to "ask" your inspector to look for. if he is a good inspector he will know what to look for and what defects are major and should be addressed immediately and which defects are minor.

If you have any specific questions, I’d be glad to help!

Questions/opinions on: (1) one property or several, and (2) whether to buy outright or put large downs and then supplement with mortgages.

My main question is whether it makes more sense to go the seller financing route and pay off the principal in 8–10 years or stick with a standard 30-year loan.My thinking is that the tax deductions from a mortgage wouldn’t outweigh the potential equity I could gain over those 8–10 years.

But I knew and had worked with a couple of hard money lenders often enough as well to know that they’d fund any purchase in the range I was looking to buy in without issue if my private lenders didn’t have the capital or weren’t interested.So to answer your question I already had several lenders in place that I had worked with previously.