Unless you operate illegally and stash 5-8 rooms in a place, it'll be hard for you to cash flow. 

All of the existing locks on the house were keyed alike, so that set went in my stash as the "first day" locks for a future house.New locks sometimes come with parts you don't end up using - strike plates with rounded and square corners, shims, etc. 

Working W2 at JP Morgan in NYC--you might not have much free time to do anything other than grab a drink with some of your work buddies after work once in a while.If that's the case...keep your expenses as low as possible and stash absolutely as much money as you can.Room mates, no car, sack lunch, etc...Cash is King...Good Luck!

Obviously this is more ideal for people who are able to stash away a good amount of savings each month after expenses, but it's a very simple and common method. 

I do not encourage you to pull from that stash, ever. 

Bottom line is that if you have tons of cash sitting around and you can forget it exits for over 5 years then maybe, still a long maybe you can stash it into Fundrise. 

Would it be more advantageous to sell and get the large lump sum to make cash offers, or cash flow, take out some money out in a refi to pay off some of the cc debt and stash some for a good flip deal.  

Keep plugging away at paying down your debt and work on stashing away some savings as well, that way you have the capital to cover the upfront costs of buying a property when you're ready.

Does stashing away for vacancy really mean anything?

I keep a stash of old AC cable I've pulled to do work where it might be visible like in the basement.