The straightforward method is to do everything yourself, as in my example above.

Locking in a lower interest term loan will also force you to get the principal down as opposed to just making minimum card payments every month that allow the balance to keep growing.

While down payments and principal payments aren't deductible, inspection fees and other acquisition costs can be added to the property’s basis for depreciation.

I have this theory that basically the stock market can grow faster than the fundamentals more so than housing, reason being when people put money into their 401k or whatever they are just throwing money in, not looking at p/e or whatever, the stock market is in part just an index of Americans excess savings plus it’s a unstated policy of the government that stocks go up, where as housing people are obviously very very aware of how much thier monthly payments is/ how much rent is, plus it seems that is actually a push to lower housing prices at least relative to inflation.

Be careful about using your current home equity as a down payment on another property.

I've done extensive research into the options and a lot of the paid options seem to focus on teaching specific investment methods.

HI Vince, as long as you are vacating your current primary home and moving into a new primary that is acceptable, but just make sure you obtain a 12 month lease in order to use the rental income to offset your mortgage payment and not getting hit twice for your current mortgage and new mortgage.

Either1) your startup takes off and you can distribute profit fast enough to pay off your debts, or2) you find another source of $100,000 a year (which barely even starts to pay down the $300k, but might provide a better chance for a better loan), or3) you BK and possibly lose the rental houses to creditors (hopefully not, but we don’t know how they are held), or 4) you sell the houses, take the tax hit, work with the IRS on a payment plan whose interest will be much lower than your CCs, and focus on the startup.  

I bought the duplex for $145,000 which put monthly payment at $918 monthly.

You inflated the price $70k but they are only making $50k in payments.