It sounds like you are overly confident in your Excel spreadsheets..... 

@Jarret Jarvis, thank you for the excellent suggestions!

I’m ideally looking to buy that first property in San Diego.Thanks The best way to beat the price of the San Diego market is STR or by the room rentals in an excellent location.

Pre-covid it was around 1M visitors for a 3 day weekend festival.

There's some excellent relevant & recent material from very high quality individuals on this forum.

Hey Joanne, you’re definitely onto something with room rentals.. it can be an excellent strategy for offsetting a hefty mortgage and, in some cases, bringing in higher total rent than a single lease.

As far as benefit to the seller goes, @Matthew Paul I think you are probably right on the money and regardless of whether they would have preferred to stay in this house rather than move, it is likely providing them some excellent cash flow; and I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a deal that serves both parties better than the current situation. 

Then plan and design how you're going to deploy that cash via what strategy your wife and you have confidence in.I use a excel or google doc and my first sheet would layout all of the details of the sale including all costs that go into getting closed.

Condo a bit different - 7% note, but we furnished it for a MTR, and tenant is excellent and deciding to stay longer.

Many judges would feel you got paid even if no cash was sent to you.I could see this potentially working on a higher-end property that it in excellent condition with a Grade A tenant.