You take the $125k you’ll have left after paying off $40k and put it in a 12 month CD.

If I can't find reviews, and a lot of them that are in favor of a company, I'm not a player.

If you are new, how are you going to handle management of either a flip or tenants in a C-/D neighborhood.

In my opinion, given the uncertainty of our government and stubbornness of inflation waiting around is not your best course of action.I'd cash-out asap and get that money into a CD generating a boring 5.5%.

Watch out for adults renting for their kid's youth group and the actual renter is not even there, just unsupervised 17 year old football players and cheerleaders.One thing to consider in buying a house is emergency response. 

Why are people willing to pay these prices when they could put it in a CD?

IE. you take $500k tax free and put it in a Cd.

The banker said to get higher interest, such as 5% needs to buy business CD.

They possess an in-depth knowledge of their target market and have cultivated strong relationships with brokers and other key players in the industry.

The panic of all this only highlights how many VERY novice players we have in this industry, and that is the real fearful item.