I spoke with @Jamie Brayton a couple months ago and she is very insightful!

I had a couple other ideas to salvage the deal first.

I used SunCoast for a couple of my properties.

If you scale and buy a couple more mats, this becomes more realistic.Laundromat vs.

Hell, even Motel 6 has a couple of junk pictures screwed to the wall.

One of my early properties barely broke even, but after a couple of years, rent hikes and expense optimization turned it into a strong performer.For cash flow benchmarks, I usually aim for $200-$300 per unit, but your situation.. house hacking.. offers unique benefits like reduced living expenses and quicker equity buildup.

Whether you should take a retirement distribution or not depends on several factors1) How much do you value the freedom/flexibility to ues the money NOW compared to when you are 60 years old.2) What type of return can you get having cash vs investing in an IRA / SDIRA.If you can make a 1% - 2% better annual return in your personal name, it may make sense as the added return will pay for the penalties over a couple of years.I personally cashed out of my retirement account back in 2016 and it was the best decision I made.

My husband and I purchased our first Costa Rica property last year and were advised by our agent that in almost 6 years of working in that market he had only ever seen 1 American Couple successfully obtain a mortgage in Costa Rica and it was from Scotia Bank. 

We turned around a couple of parks.

I also just requested to join a couple fb groups realted to STRs in DFW.