Hopefully some newer investors can glean some useful info out of this and help stir up some questions they need to answer before getting started.

I need to learn more about accounting, taxes, and market trends (and I’m sure many other things) and I need some recommendations on books , classes, seminars etc. or even just to sit with an investor or someone with experience and expertise in these areas over coffee and glean from them.

I have gleaned these lenders from folks here on BP, and have used TD Bank and PenFed for my own. 

@Zoe Lee Not sure if you gleaned the information you were after.

I have gleaned the following from people here on BP who said they had used one of these lenders for a non owner occupied HELOC.

You'll glean a great deal of information from them.

Any conversation with competitors could be quite hostile with people gleaning details that will allow them to take the market.  

Only you and your CPA can define those parameters and decide best course of action.Based on the information I glean from you, I would do the 2019 acquisitions and go from there.Like @Michael Plaks said, if you end up with net rental losses, adding to them the extra CSS depreciation is not going to help you that year (!)

Based on what I've gleaned online, it appears that we CANNOT use the proceeds (it's worth about $100K above our original purchase price) in a 1031 Exchange to pay off the mortgages on a couple of our other, existing rental homes.

I am reading every book I can on this subject and attending as many MeetUps as I can in my spare time to glean knowledge.