Glad it's working for you I slowed down on RE for about the past year and a half S&P 500 is up 27% YTD, NASDAQ 100 up 32% 

I was going on vacation, so I arranged for my partner to give him half the second payment for supplies only. 

I have 250 agents in my market and half of them have only sold 1-2 properties.TIP: look for a property manager first.

The unit with the hot tub for a year and half. 

We managed over half of the purchase price in cash and then the remainder was held as a 3 year seller's note.

Easiest thing is to align with those people.

Given the permitting timeline, I will offer to purchase some of the furniture and redecorate the rest (so half and half to reduce some furniture building time).

Yup half of these ideas are OLD NEWS  I never equate Texas and low tax's LOL also my concern with build to rent subdivisions is not the rent or the first 3 to 5 years but the exit in 7 to 10 years which is average hold time for investors.. 

I used a hard money loan to purchase this off market deal.I rehabbed the upper two units within two and a half weeks and have a renter already lined up for one unit.

That's exactly the strat for now, some more Airbnb's and a House Hack for the first half of the year but a House Hack DP in NJ is still 5x more than a DP on a SFH out of state in some markets.