The city may boost my business since I pay a lot of taxes.....

The $450K will be returned to me as payback of my loan to the intermediary, without trigger any capital gain taxes, right?

If you want predictability, value hard assets, and like the tax advantages, then investing in a real estate syndication may be a good fit.

Pick 10 people that are in foreclosure, and ask them if they want to sell their house or keep it.Correct. 10 out of 10 will say: "keep it".Now pick 10 tax liens people from your amazing tax liens list.Same equation, Do you want to sell or keep?

@Eric Lowe Prior to pulling the trigger on a Cost Seg study, you should evaluate 2 things:1 - How much net additional deprecation tax deductions a Cost Seg study would provide: Best way to get this is by requesting a free feasibility analysis from a Cost Seg provider.

I moved from the SF Bay Area to live and invest in Reno, NV because of it being much more landlord friendly, low property taxes, close to Northern CA and Lake Tahoe, strong appreciation, and I understood the market after speaking to a bunch of people and feeling confident about the future here.  

Focus on finding a real estate tax strategist who specializes real estate taxation, cost segregations, tax planning and financial planning. 

To make it easy, you can't buy in an LLC unless that LLC has two years of tax returns or if you are buying in cash.

I am just unsure if we can avoid capital gains taxes if we do the seller financing route. 

If its more of a long term strategy or tax strategy it can work.