Additionally, my partner and I are using our renovation dollars to build up cash to play in the larger 10+ unit multi-family buy hold arena.

If you need access to more cash, could either look for a hard money lender or pump more equity into the home via overpayments for a year to build up the equity to use for a HELOC.

@Jacob Wathen i'm in k falls right now just moved here from the chicagoland area.

In the upper unit, the tenant has lived there for a number of years and smokes inside the unit - it's definitely going to need some work to address the cigarette smoke/tar build up. 

I would not walk away from the first home simply because you found another one you like better.Once you close on the first house, start saving aggressively to build up a down payment for the short sale home.

When you build up enough money go get your second house.

That way, you get the tax preferential treatment of long term capital gains and still get to build up capital while you flip.

Plan to build up my Portfolio with the BRRRR Method as well.When you purchase a house with a HELOC make sure you also add the minimum payment for the loan to your expenses (lot of people forget to add this and wonder where there cashflow is) but when you Buy, Rehab, Rent, then get to the Refinance part the bank will normally give you 65 to 75 percent of the ARV, and the appraiser will base it on the current comps in your market.Check out this article from @Andrew Syrios    https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/brrrr-buy...

I am itching to get a new place now but I need to build up the cash reserves again. 

Build up capital to purchase my first small multifamily property with emergency       reserves.