I see you always beating on the drum of "refi and reinvest" when it may not be be best option for somebody that has enough properties already and just wants to simplify their current investments.

@Pat Parrillo - thank you for the insight Pat that simplified analysis demonstrates nicely how a financing decision for a single property potentially has a significant effect on your long term goals.

For numbers, I like to use BP calculators, my own, simplified excel calculator, and then a good reality check to make sure awesome numbers (or not so awesome numbers) make sense for the area.

It sounds from your description that it is.However, because you also do personal activities in the room (play games on your desktop), it doesn't sound like this would pass the "exclusive use" rule.Playing the games on your laptop in a different room would likely qualify the room as "exclusive use" as a home office.Also note that in the future if you take this deduction, there is a simplified method you can use to reduce the records you have to keep - just multiply the square footage of the office by $5 (if it is under 300 total square feet).

But don't forget you're a seller as well and you can always require an extended closing date on the property you are selling or make the sale contingent on finding a good replacement property.You could also look at simplifying your exchange and buying one replacement property that could absorb your entire exchange. 

Sounds like you have some good real world experience, but let me simplify things for you.  

You then use the report itself to choose the most qualified applicant or eliminate higher risk applicants based on their report details.I use the second approach as it simplifies my screening by not wasting my time on higher risk applicants.

He told me I can't take any home office deduction (I'm interested in the "simplified one" $5/sf) because I'm not a Real Estate Professional (750 hours spent or half my regular business time).

Even then, you have to test each one out and see what will work for you.I see no reason to pay for software until you get into the neighborhood of 50+ units so you can really simplify processes and focus more on growth.

If you're still mid-career and looking to simplify both your taxes and your business structure, I'd start looking into creating the brokerage as an S-Corp, leaving your particular earned commissions in and pulling a salary from the brokerage.