@Julie Doke: Industry specific software speaks to you and you can easily relate it to your day to day process.

It's a bit far from me though but definitely interested in small apartment buildings in the Cleveland area.

Go to BUILD YOUR TEAM at the top of the screen and look for local investors or meetups in your area.

The options are, demo the lot, split the lot and then sell 2 lots to the builder or build myself.

But I’d say the key to success is building a reliable team on the ground.

Get your basic estate docs in place before building a complex entity structure.  

The contributions are lower so it takes a while to build, but once you do, it's tax-free investing. 

I would like to build several (2 - 6) "shipping container" type homes for either short, mid or long term rental.

I do not think they regulate this strictly on other industries like food service, or even medical.Sounds like the mayor or city planner or someone "important" had a bad stay at a STR somewhere.

If you'd ask this question while still employed I'd say apply the $8500 toward knocking down the debt quicker but since that is not the case I would build up your reserves to about 6 months then begin applying those funds to bring down the debt.