.- Partner with Other Investors: Bringing in partners can help you pool resources and reduce individual risk.

Doing so, with preliminary numbers, would reduce our monthly income by a $150 or so since we would have a mortgage on the cash house plus the new house.  

It will reduce the potential backlash from them.

Since you already have a VA loan (zero or low DP) your entitlement has been reduced. 

As you no doubt have experienced, the cost of living continues to climb, and even though we do our best to be efficient with keeping expenses down, there is no way reduce those costs back to what they were even a year ago.

Should be able to reduce the rate or similar terms but with less down. 

You still might be able to get the building insured for under $300/month but options will be very limited and coverage reduced for any property with knob & tube wiring. 

The moment the price was reduced I jumped on it.

It's the most important document you have as a tool to increase revenue, reduce costs and liabilities, and be able to enforce the way you do business with tenants.

In which case, splitting out the rental portion of the activity from the operating portion would help reduce the exposure to self employment tax3) One is a qualified real estate professional for tax purposes...but wouldn't be a material participant in the hotel activity.