I have also utilized owner financing for longer periods of time, including personal residence and 2 barrier island houses on the coast of Florida.  

FHA loans may allow for lower down payments if the property will be owner-occupied.Owner Financing or Creative Offers:Explore properties where sellers are open to owner financing or lease-to-own agreements.

I've decided to stabilize it and pay down the mortgage for a while and reassess in the future what my plan is. 

I finally decided to look elsewhere.  

Someone just put in an offer. lol Now, I have to decide to hold or sell after a counter.

I'd love to hear if you decided to move forward, if so how it's gone for you, and if not what held you back?

I plan to start my investing journey with an owner occupied multi-family in Albany or the surrounding cities.

- FYI: it's only illegal to try to rent it out, the property owner can usually legally live in a nonconforming basement unit.If you do all this you may still negatively cashflow each month, so make sure your income can cover and/or your cash reserves.If you do this successfully, you will learn more in 1-2 years than you would reading here on BP for 5+ years:)Good luck:)

The main reason cited that as a small property owner, not using PM's, if anything happens, the LLC and you will be sued anyway.

If you're tax bill is $6-8k (minus the 1031 fees), surely you can make that up by taking multiple swings over a longer period of time.OR pursue some sort of owner occupied strategy with that cash if you can swing a live in flip or house hack.