My suggestion to any one that are first time real estate investor in fix & flip, or planning to hold property for rentals, is to learn or read, understand about real estate financing first, build your assets and network or partner withsome has completed some projects in fix & flip and has some rental properties with positive cash flow within your immediate area before dving in to any project by youyrself.

The drawback is you need to build trust and relationships upfront.Both have their place, but private money tends to offer more flexibility, while hard money is more structured and accessible if you lack personal connections.

Additionally, you have to be disciplined to spend less than you save and keep in mind that you're paying I/O on the principal balance v/s chunking down principal, albeit minimal in the initial years, which goes against the Dodd-Frank rule for qualified mortgages for homeowners

The 1031 exchange rule to defer your tax is two part 1) reinvest all your proceeds and 2) purchase a property (or properties / DSTs/TICs) with an equal or greater market value.  

However, the road block I face is getting to a point where I think it’s an “ok” deal (meaning it’s not fulfilling the 1% rule, but more like 0.75% and little to no immediate renovation cost/typically a new build townhome) and then I start to question whether I could find a BETTER deal if I just keep looking.

But if you/your team like to spend some time building your own flow, feel like it's better to build it on go high level directly. 

Each area has its own rules on how it works, but basically, you buy the house, pay a deposit and agree to rehab the house within a certain amount of time.

An example might be a commercial tenant with 50% of the space in a building sends an after-letter notice that it now plans to vacate at the end of its lease term in 6 months.

And your net worth will thank you.If you still want to go ahead, you'd be better off buying a house than an apartment because, while the value of the building itself will go to 0, you'll still have the value of the land, bearing in mind that the land might actually lose value too given the depopulation and the yen depreciation.Sorry if I'm pooping a party but make sure you understand what you're getting into (which you're already doing by asking the forum) and then make the decision that's right for you according to your objectives.

Then as you build your portfolio look to hire a new Tax Accountant or CPA to match your growing needs.