I admittedly have a bias against condos for the following reasons:1) HOAs - both a lack of control over fees and assessments, as well as potential regulation changes2) they don’t appreciate as much3) you have to work a lot harder to differentiate yourself from your neighbors. 

Despite popular option the fed nor a president has direct control over long term interest rates.

While many of these issues are important considerations and should not be ignored or overlooked, there are other more crucial criteria that you must question and evaluate first.The critical risk criteria that you must review and evaluate prior to making your final decision on which 1031 Exchange Qualified Intermediary to retain includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:Technical capability of the 1031 Exchange Qualified IntermediaryInternal processes and audit controls to safeguard your 1031 Exchange funds and assetsUse of Qualified Trust Accounts or Qualified Escrow AccountsDecision criteria and guidelines for investment of your 1031 Exchange fundsProtection from potential errors or omissions by the Qualified Intermediary (E&O Insurance) Protection from potential theft or embezzlement of 1031 Exchange funds (Fidelity Bond) An experienced and professional 1031 Exchange Qualified Intermediary will understand these concerns and should be happy to discuss these crucial issues with you.

So, YOU or a project manager or a designer or a partner would be more ideal to have control over the scope of work. 

This would allow you to keep the current mortgage and keep entire control of the property.

Just do your numbers and control the deal to make money.  

Yes, it's actually possible to control mice by acting like an adult and dealing with them.

talking to the Bank its going to be far and few between that the mortgages these folks are taking sub to is still owned or controlled by the "Bank" the loans were sold within months of origination and maybe MERS has it ( sliced and diced) and for sure your dealing with a servicer.. who is not going to negotiate one bit.. now if you happen to have a sub to with a portfolio lender and you can actually talk to someone who is a decision maker thats different but I submit those loans will be a small fraction of the deals being done.

We do not know if big players are shorting their own positions because they plan on collapsing the bubble.I do hope Jerry Shen was able to turn his fortune from Yahoo!  

This allows you to control renovations and decide whether to self-manage on the back end.