She gave me $15,000 last year and the other half this year and will be assuming my mortgage.

For the weekdays it was half that or less.

As my avg rental period is <8 days, and I have <14 days personal use at the property and believe I can meet the material participation test, this should be a non-passive activity.Specific Questions on Material Participation:1) Do hours logged for material participation in 2022 include time prior to placing the property in service (i.e. first half of 2022)?

Half of it is already finished for the first floor.

The W-2 job will be the easiest way to get your first 1-5 rentals. 

I spent 10 years in remodeling, the latter half of that doing buy-hold rehabs.

I've been here for a year and a half and have yet to do a deal.

I could not find this specific question looking through the first half dozen pages of results when I searched in this forum for this question. 

The easiest way would be to leverage a DSCR loan.

Easiest for me to sell and start again at a later time.