While I certainly think that reducing retirement account contributions and investing in real estate could be a great option for an early retirement, it requires honest conversations and detailed projections around your current portfolio's performance and expected rate of return on future acquisitions.

I agree with the others here that say you need to have some skin in the game, if you are going to live there yourself, get an FHA loan rather than owner financing, you can get a 3.5% down loan, personally I do not love these as they require  PMI which is an additional expense, and you also need  bring additional funds for closing at least for taxes, title, attorney and transfer fees . borrowing from anyone else for the down payment, to include a personal loan from the bank is not a good idea, those again will be higher int. rate.

Be sure to do your due diligence and make sure the PMC is licensed (if required, it's not in all states) and insured.

In rural Ohio ponds are required every so many feet when fire hydrants aren't available.

So, coming up with more capital to invest in another property requires some creative thinking.

However, asset based loan products require liquid assets, property equity is not a liquid asset for an asset based program.All our 2nd mortgage programs just increased limits to $750,000!

Some of them even walk off the job, even after they pull permits and are technically responsible for the work.  

That is my day job.

Gas heat would require constant tank refilling and it would be very bad to run out in the winter.

I did not know of this time log requirement for STRs, so as a newbie I am going back through emails, texts, phone logs, invoices, etc. to determine how much time I spent on everything.