I first became interested in real estate after a high school friend of mine partnered with some people close to him to flip a house where he turned a large profit, especially for a 20 year old. He told me about the Bi...

With this underwriting, it all seems to rely on burning off of loss to lease, vacancy and concessions.  

You find out up front if they have any cash or not, vs burning 30-45 days to find it appraises at your listing price, and they don't have the cash to close.Get a VA checklist from one of your trusted lenders and make sure everything in the house meets the checklist. 

I'm still current on my payments but by now all the hope is lost.all of my life savings are gone, and now I'm about to have collectors on my back for the rest of my life.I need an advice how to navigate through giving up on the properties.DennisYou will have to save up again.And not see this as the end, but look for more cunning ways to begin again.I do not do AirBnB type stuff, but you seem to like it (yet it is momentarily down--it will probably come back up again), but once burned!

I to have been burned by contractors, Im sure most people have.

Doors (or clients) that require extensive and constant attention from my staff are not long for this world and will be cut loose.As @Richard F. mentioned, clients fall into those two categories (micromanaging, time-sucking parasites who place zero value on the value of your time, or the "don't bother me unless the house burned down" clients).   

You can’t stop the house from burning down after you incurred costs, but before you’ve closed. if you’re leveraging, you can’t change interest rate (much.) you can’t guarantee that you don’t have a year of rent loss because your state decided to put a moratorium on evictions. did you see the case in California where the guy sold his house but didn’t move out?

You have very strong equity in your current home, but you don't want to burn it all and make your house worth less with more leverage.

I don't know what you do for a living, but you could try burning the candle at both ends.

Sometimes lessons are only learned after being burned yourself.