There's a few different ways to focus on a lower rate such as with house hacking and making the investment your primary residence, requesting a significant closing credit from the sellers for standard rate buy-downs (which I've had great success with recently), or utilizing lenders who offer short term rate lowering solutions such as 2-1 rate buy downs (again, ideally paid for by the sellers).

It sounds like the Title Co. was not aware that the tenant prepaid rent and just prorated the current rent for the month of closing, so agree if they had no knowledge of it, would not have ever gone on the settlement statement as a credit to the buyer and they likely will not do anything post closing to help obtain those funds. 

I would personally use some of that equity and get started with your first property.

Yes - it is far more work than a silent investor in a syndication... but I want the control, so find it personally more rewarding.  

Being a curious person, I gained an interest in real estate investing due to other classmates being interested in real estate.

Most personal loans I have looked at have terms of 10 years or less.

___________________________________________________________Why does everyone want to chase strangers – and ignore their own personal network?

Proper time tracking and logs are critical for demonstrating compliance with this rule.I've only seen one person with a W-2 qualify for reps, and that was from a tax court case where people had to come in in person and attest to his hard work.

I highly recommend going to meetups and talking to investors in person. 

If you are running a LLC for your rentals is essential that you keep all business  funds in a separate account I like Credit  unions the best .