It's putting out lots of fires, managing finances like a hawk, keeping projects on time, in line and on budget, marketing the property & getting it through closing, and *then* doing it all over again - and that's if you're not doing any of the work yourself. 

Quote from @Edgar Duarte: hi allI would love to get some perspective from your expertise, we have a property that we would have to sell in 2025 to avoid paying taxes on the capital gains, we believe we rcan sell it for $700K and get an equity of almost $500K after paying the mortgage balance, if we invest all of it option in index funds at 7% rate (standard com growth calculator), or in more rental properties as we are all here for, I can get the equity of around $900K.option B would be keep paying the house at 2.3% int rate while we have it in AirBnB and maybe sell it in 10 years for $900K, knowing that we would be paying taxes but it is not that bad still. or we can 1031 at that point?

I'll be keeping your info as I'm about to be a North Carolina resident and property investor.

Working on a prospective deal and wanted to know whether to flip or keep as rental.

No way is this a scheme to keep EM for the seller..Anytime I have had EMD disputes it usually gets solved with a 50 50 split since I know what will happen.. what happens is exactly as you describe.. money is to small to realistically hire an attorney to collect..

Tampa can work, but yes, taxes and insurance are higher and might keep cash flow tight.

Keep searching for lenders because you're speaking to the wrong ones. 

House hacking and leveraging my W-2 income to stack properties before transitioning into full-time real estate makes a lot of sense, and I'll definitely keep this approach in mind.

We want to plan in the most tax vantaged ways (which includes keeping future AGI as low as possible) and open to new-age and creative concepts.Respectfully ask to keep discussion to topic vs. selling one's self or services seeking new business.

I would start keeping track of everything that you've had/have to do while owning/acquiring this property.