In the context of your post, licensed agents generally can't compensate non-licensed "people" (humans or non-human entities).

I have been told it is about 3% higher in general for an out of country investor, is this true? 

Yes, you can generally use suspended PALs from other properties to offset gains when you fully dispose of a property in a taxable transaction.

In my experience, banks aren't generally interested in financing the acquisition/rehab of a residential investment properties, but rather they prefer to refinance your HML once the property is stabilized.

Also, Buckhead is generally pretty expensive and when adding Condo fees, tough to cashflow significantly. 

My question: is there a general order of doing rehab?

well. lower tax's generally helps RE and business as a whole. will have to see if they come up with something specific like the cost seg rules that are redy to sunset.

Please note the information provided below is a layman's definition designed to provide a basic understanding for the general audience.

I have been with Fundrise since late 2017 but all Real Estate equity (~75%) and debt (~25%) with a fairly small investment that, according to their calculations, has returned gross ~7.5%pa (growth + dividends) over that 7 year period.So the above is not bad based on general risky asset long term annual returns, but the S&P 500 has returned (growth+ dividends reinvested) ~14.3% pa over that same period (source: using https://ofdollarsanddata.com/sp500-calculator/).

Generally, Distributions are paid from profits that have already been taxed at the personal-level since IRS Schedule K-1 flows through to personal return.