But if you have the cash or can pull it from another account or can get a gift for the down payment.

You can still find homes in these markets, among others, that are priced between $160k to $275k that still provide passive income, allowing your residents to pay down your mortgage, cover your other expenses and still have excess money to either save in an account for future investing or pay down your existing mortgage faster. 

I think most successful investors would tell you that, while you need to take tax into account in your decisions, you shouldn't make a decision based on that alone.

I reconcile our trust account each month in about ½ an hour.

Set up a Joint account with the seller so you can make deposits to continue the automatic payments to the lender until you refinance the property.Thanks,Dustin

There are also additional costs of operating and maintaining an LLC, like separate bank accounts, annual report filings, tax filings, etc.2.

My account manager has basically gone silent.

The court uploads its docket ussually days ahead of when the doc is recorded and uploaded to the clerk/recorders office.PAy attention to what they are charging once you go over your free limit for whatever account you pay for.

So if your interest payment is $1000 then the servicer automatically ACH debits your account that plus the servicing fee (assuming you set up automatic payments as @Christian Ehlers suggests).

They do not take into account the revenue from the STR in valuation.Just because you are doing well with it doesn't mean it will work for the buyer.