You had enough risk margin to absorb a loan that may not be optimal, and you have already learned a few lessons. 

Rent larger home, use cash to rent a smaller home/move to retirement community (disadvantage: less community of older folks; advantage is we can continue to own the home but make money off of the rent payments; but now we have to manage new renters)Basically asking if anyone has experience moving to a retirement community, and what the optimal move is with our current real estate assets.Where could we talk to similar people in this situation?

I’ve been searching the web and RE sites, and have found a few places out of state where the numbers look really good for cash flow and CoC return, and I’m ready to start viewing the properties and making the next steps.My question to the community is this; is it better to have my own realtor with me to go through discussions and negotiations, or would it be okay to use the sellers realtor (assuming that is who is listed as the realtor on each site)?

ARV about $180-195k My optimal strategy would be to rent it out to students $400 a room.

Are you planning on keeping the complex or flipping it once optimized? 

You can choose online options such as social media ads, YouTube videos or web pages.

@Cinda HammHi Cinda,Don't run the Ozone machine with any people or animals in the house.It will harm them, and may kill them as well as well as the smell.Also when it's done it will take a while for the Ozone to abate, so don't rush right in, wait a while.Machine probably doesn't say that, say that, but it's on the web in quite a few places.Good Luck!

In your area, you might consider https://emeraldcoastbyowner.com - a number of hosts that I'm in touch with report good results.I'm further south (Tampa Bay) and also list on https://www.floridarentalbyowners.com/ and https://www.floridarentals.com - have had some inquiries but no bookings yet.I'd also recommend getting your own web site set up so you can accept direct bookings, particularly from repeat guests - we've been doing this for a few years now and our repeat bookings continue to grow year over year, and having a direct-booking option has worked well for us.If you're not interested in setting up your own web site and booking back-end, maybe take a look at https://www.houfy.com/ set up a listing and refer your repeat guests to your Houfy listing.

While there is a good bit of discussion here on the BP forums, not all of it is comprehensive or even accurate... the nature of web forums. 

Also to look online using apps or web to pull up rentals in the area.