What would you do if you were to explore this option and how would you prevent yourself from being burned?

He has written rules into our by laws preventing moving kitchen and bathroom plumbing.

So addressing it up front prevents that from being you.

That would prevent an exchange into REITs.However, it's possible to exchange into Umbrella Partnership Real Estate Investment Trusts upREITs.

Is there a way to prevent this if so? 

Just make sure you have a solid buyer and enough time to prevent the house going into auction. 

I hear so many different things from people online it just keeps me confused and prevents me from taking the "next step".

Whereas with a car- you could sell the car and STILL have debt.You could always do a mix of both- pay a HUGE down payment to have a bigger buffer between the home value and the mortgage + have a lower monthly payment.Regardless- even though it may be preventing you from buying RE at THIS MOMENT- you are doing a great job financially being completely out of consumer debt!

Looking to rebound and I hope BiggerPockets will prevent me from making another bad choice.I’m starting to evaluate multi family homes.

I wonder if they used a perforated pipe without the sock on it... my understanding is these usually have some crushed rock over a perforated pipe with the liner over it to prevent dirt plugging it up.