Many people recommend buy and hold for 4-6 years there and then either 1031 or refi and pull money out.

If you want to sell a property and keep deferring that tax by NOT recapturing the depreciation, you can do a 1031 exchange where the proceeds are held by a licensed intermediary for a short time while you identify and close on a replacement property.

You can’t use 1031 exchange funds to pay off existing debt so a 1031 doesn’t really solve your problem.

The contract states “listing broker compensation shall be paid if property is sold, exchanged, conveyed within 30 days after the expiration of the listing agreement or termination of this agreement etc etc etc etc”- our listing agreement was set to expire on November 30, 2024 but we terminated it early- does this mean he will be owed commission if one of the buyers ends up buying my house on say January 1?

Could that bite our REP in year 5 when a big pile of ordinary earnings income is realized (if they don’t 1031 and defer it)?

@Francine Geike If the investment property doesn't seem to bring in enough cash flow to comfortablyprovide a return, a 1031 exchange might be a good option for you.

You can also provide sweat equity to a deal, in exchange for equity.

For context, 4 adults and all our tech living here, we were running about $250/mo on average per month for electricity anyway... outside of summer a/c useage. so all in all, its saved me about $2k a year if i had to guesstimate for you (it stays hot here through October usually).i still owe about $23k on mine, have no intentions of selling the house. but if i decide to move out and rent the whole house out, our market would support higher rent in exchange for no electricity bill. i think you just need to decide what YOUR main benefit of having the panels are. for me it was for the house-hack, and consistent billing, despite the usage. if its strictly for property value increase, i'm not sure it would be worth it, pending your specific market. 

You might explore partnerships where you fund all-cash deals in exchange for a portion of the profit.

The most benefit for Real Estate in the US now would be smart contracts to exchange Title,Notes, Funds (stable coins) since the transaction time is super fast compare to our bank system today.