Don't invest in low class areas and you won't have to deal with that kind of stuff. 

Do I buy as low as I can to afford mortgage with 0 down and use 300k for big bear or put a larger down on primary home.

If you have a low rate with a pretty high LTV already then I wouldn't be refinancing it now to consolidate $12K in debt.3) You need to find a deal before you can apply for the loan.

Congrats on your growing business and best of luck in whatever you choose!

Working on a few STR deals with savvy investor sellers and we are wrapping some really low interest rates so the DOS clause concern is very much alive… We have decided to go the land trust route w/ one of the properties to try to be as careful as possible.

Further, the reason for sale sub to may be because of some property deficiency that does not allow the property to qualify for new financing, or the property may not be worth the amount owed forcing the seller to “compensate” a higher than market price with either “easy or no qualifying” or a low interest rate.

Value-add strategies like BRRRR can work well in any market provided that you buy low enough (the challenge for all of us).

That's a low-return improvement, compared to say new bathrooms/kitchens.IMHO, if you expect to increase your net through rental and market appreciation, consider the length of time it will take to realize that goal—many years. 

Choose ListSource and build yourself or use PropStream or DealMachine.

Someone with 1-3 properties might choose to manually track income and expenses on a spreadsheet.