Or what if you personally found home you want to buy without a real estate agent...is it recommend to engage an agent?

Making the first right hire will change your life forever.If you want to scale to anything worthwhile you cannot do it alone.

Quote from @Makan A Tabrizi: Tenant B sounds like a difficult person, so you may be better off getting rid of him.

They aggressively de-lever to not only create more cash flow without having to buy more assets, but also because they are starting to think about estate planning and how to efficiently create a very comfortable life for their kids.Lots of debt, long term debt or no debt are all right answers.  

So I am turning to the BP community at large to see if anyone here has any personal recommendations?

-Move and split my equity 50% our personal house/ 50% on a rental?

Make sure whatever you buy, you go and personally view the homes. 

We are going to be taking out some equity, no not a heloc, so that we can do some remodeling on our personal residence kitchen.  

Anything $2500 or below can be deductible via de minimis safe harbor.Higher expenses need to be capitalized.You can also do a Cost Segragation Study to capitalize some items quicker based on life expectancy. 

Personal Partnerships with someone you recently met are too risky for my blood.