If you can’t do a 1031 to a non-income tax state, figure out a year when you will have lower income and tax rates ar as low as possible.

Through proactive maintenance, efficient tenant placement, and careful financial management, I optimized rental income and ensured a steady cash flow.

A debt service loan would be a good option if your DTI is high, you want to close in an LLC, you're self-employed or have low income on paper, or you don't have a stable 2-year work history.

City proper has been on 5 year bear market completely unrelated to anything political, the suburbs have been adding inventory since the summer but are still very low but any measure and have actually gotten tighter the last few month, while I am open to the idea these cuts could eventually have some effect on the market, about 20% of the dc area is federal employees, let’s say the federal government cut the work force 25% which would be huge, that’s 5% of the population, but a good number of those people are either two income households where one person works in the private and/or the person being laid can go get a similar job in the provide sector l, the percentage of households who would be forced to sell thier house over this is likely in very low single digits.

In the meantime learn and figure out how to increase income/savings.

One of my applicants showed up with little credit but no defaults, no evictions, and only traffic violations and verified income high enough to cover well over 3 times the rent and I accepted the tenant despite there being some signs.He paid the rent in time for the most part until a few weeks ago when he stopped and I could not get ahold of him.

I average about $2000 a month in cashflow on the current rental property, and the new property would bring in around $3500 in gross revenue.

If you have high W2 income, the amount your STR makes (or loses) will be peanuts compared to the tax savings.

Don't change jobs or income yet.Once you do and you think you can manage the payments based on your new income, maybe once you get the rooms rented.Then if you want to switch there are plenty of opportunities. 

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.