Husband and I are purchasing a property as our private residence that also has a small cottage on it we plan to STR. 

Typically his projects have been privately funded and smaller than this one.

If you’re in an area with a strong private banking community, that might be your best bet.Hope that helps!

I’m looking at private lending to flippers with a line of credit or using a line of credit to put a down payment on a new cash flowing property (which is extremely hard for me to find right now) but with a line of credit as a down payment I would be financing a new property at 100% at unfavorable rates.

You could invest passively by being a private lender (earning high interest), being a money partner (getting equity and a return for no work), investing in a syndication deal (similar to money partner but on bigger deals where you are one of many investors), buying another investment property and hiring a property management company, or investing in stocks. 

- Are there alternative financing options, like private lenders or hard money loans, that could be suitable for someone with fluctuating income?

And my feeling is for MOST people Solo 401k is sufficient to meet their needs, and an actuary creating a custom plan is “overkill”.  

@Deborah WodellThere was a guy who used to post on BP from Maryland who did private lending and was a fraud, changed company names many times and what he would do is write construction loans, fund the initial amount but didn’t have the money for the draws.

Jack,since you run Gelt and do private lending, think of being in first position on a loan with a private lender and that lender just randomly assigns the loan to someone else without advising you.

Perhaps setting up a private FB group and inviting those in.