I can of course change that when I file for 2018 but I am planning on making a career change into sales within the next 9-12 months.

I would check with your high school to see if your career center can hook you up with a real estate company and/or internship program.

Real estate, however you choose to pursue a career in it, can make you rich.

I have spent my entire career in real estate including multi family management and brokerage.

@Helen Dennehy Welcome to BP and good luck with your new career.

I've always been interested in building/construction (my career path is Project Management) and I want to build a strategy for flipping SFR and acquiring rental properties along the way.

I'm not sure if I should pursue that avenue, which will give me a high earnings potential and therefore allow me to qualify for more loans in the future, or just take the $40k I have and jump into a real estate career.

I seriously think you should cut off all communication with the tenant and hire an attorney immediately.While your attorney deals with the tenants, I think you should do some research and find a quality property manager that can handle this for you before you make a big mistake that will derail your investment career.

I'm currently in the process of moving back to Duluth as a career change. 

The following is not a legal opinion (I'm not an attorney) but it is a practical opinion having taken assignment, having assigned contracts, and having purposefully prevented assignments and having heard attorney's opinions on this about 3 or 4 dozen times over the course of my career for real estate contracts in Ohio.