We're already scheming about turning our other long-term rental (which is 3 minutes away from this one) into an STR.

Yes there were some minor advantages to be had by using a second mortgage with a lower interest rate, the float on your account and moving money around from one account to the other but it was a complex scheme with not a lot of advantage. 

@Tommy Martinez  the give back notion that was posted above is simply to suck you into their scheme. you can go work for someone IE mentor for dollars. and maybe some people get off in teaching for free but what @David Dachtera advocates is not free..

Seems like in the grand scheme 10k for the damages is not that big a deal.

There are many companies that were nothing more than pyramid schemes or investments like bernie madoffs and other companies that sold stock without having a product or service.

Avoiding UDFI is nice when possible, but it really does not add up to that much in the grand scheme of things, and you still very much get the benefits of higher cash-on-cash return through leverage even under an IRA subject to UDFI.

In the big scheme of things in Massachusetts you're getting off cheap.  

A couple people have offered their opinion that I should spend the extra $$ to get stainless steel appliances because of my color scheme.

@Dawn Anastasi  the reality is these lending schemes that just collect up front fee's and due diligence fee's have been around for as long as I have been in the business  42 years now.Its just now that the off shore folks are hammering us.. those guys are serial  in what they do and the word probably has spread around about social real estate networks and the easy targets.

Yes it’s money making racket like many areas of law, but that’s just another fact in the big scheme of things.