Any suggestions, advice, or experience you could give me.

It's worth doing the call with them because that's free.

Start with BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginners Guide (free).

Should I just jump into it and try to invest in my first property with not much experience besides the many investing books I've read?

If that's the case, if it's a flipper with zero development experience, no way would I have any interest

Feel free to reach out if you’ve got more questions.

Also look back on their application and see if you missed any 'red flags" so this can be a valuable learning experience for you.

Can you either rent out your current property if there’s been little/no appreciation, or sell it tax free?

I have 10 years of construction experience and my partner does as well.

In my experience, 75% of the time, the tax payer doesn't have a large enough liability to justify the accelerated depreciation anyhow- depending on your income and tax bill, it might not matter at all.