It seems it was a temporary government sponsored play to help move Department of Veteran Affairs owned foreclosures off the books when there was a glut of them.  

Creating a holding company, LLC, business cards, websites, and all this other nonsense is like buying an indoor basketball court so you can pursue your dream of playing in the NBA . . . before you even try a pickup game to see if you are any good or like the sport.Buy an investment property and learn how to manage it.

Our first house is currently being rented, and was being rented when we bought this one, so I'm not really sure how that plays into it. 

Sometimes it costs to play.

After about an hour of playing with it, I came to the conclusion that likely water had entered into the refrigerator from upstairs.

In Ohio and I wasn’t the one playing he ran off with my money.

Why play with fire? 

In my opinion, some associations have way too much control and tend to take advantage of the out of state investors (not all of course).Is your preference to purchase another STR if a 1031 is the play?

He claimed that if we would just spend $2k on the backyard he would "increase the value of the house between 35-40%".I got him a $100 gift card to Armstrong garden just to play nice.

@Tim Bender  Are you only pursuing deed's after tax sales where there is a redemption period in play?