Besides directly contacting the employer, this is now the only way I feel comfortable verifying income—especially since pay stubs and bank statements are frequently being altered these days.

I truly feel a need to understand your process, because this question seems to get asked almost hourly.

I feel the same.

Here is their webpage:  https://www.titanbank.com/about-us As for Solera, yes, the main reason I chose Titan Bank over them is because Solera's webpage didn't have a professional enough look and feel to it compared to Titan Bank. 

I feel if you can do the 1031 you should lean towards that.

Hop on Airbnb and scan nearby properties of similar size to get a feel for what they offer at the price points charged.

I also reccomend lining up a contractro early, realy early, from what I’ve heard, so you can keep everything on schedule and budget.So now that you’ve tackled what most investors would call a major job, do you see yourself repeating a similar strategy.. or do you feel like branching out into something else?

Whether you're a new or seasoned investor, feel free to reach out.

Or put in cheaper paper and see if you get comments on how it feels like sandpaper.

Quote from @Jaycee Greene: As long as you feel you can cover large capex, there's not much need to keep much cash in the account, though I would keep the SD in there, so it looks like you're not co-mingling funds.