In one of your posts you mentioned the landlord.

Not to mention there is an entire country north of us still. 

Being from Chicago, I'd tend to agree with you @Craig Jones those areas of Wisconson and & Michigan are driveable from a lot of those metro areas you mentioned, but I think the toughest part of any northern short term rental is the seasonaility. 

No, as I mentioned I have LTR rentals but it's becoming difficult to keep buying these when I don't get any immediate tax benefits from them, I've bought two in the last 2 years and had to put out a bunch of money to get them ready, etc and not one cent of that is a writeoff for me until years in the future when I actually have passive profit, meanwhile I live in a high tax, high COL state.

.), and know how to put together a deal.As @Michael K Gallagher mentioned, you'd want to clarify whether or not your agent is also representing the seller.

It was mentioned by my insurance agent in the past.  

My guy said the mold needs to be heated or sealed in, hence the shellac you mentioned.

The one I hear most often is they are waiting on rates to come down.

As Chris mentioned, the taxpayer has to stay the same between the 1031s.

Again, this comes down to the factors mentioned above.