If I'm in your shoes I would checkout any local RE meetups happening nearby, that would be a great spot to meet some other folks in your shoes and/or other lenders who might be able to give their perspective if it makes sense to pull out money from your home rn or not. 

If I were in your shoes, here's what I would do: Start by securing a work-from-home job.

Have also been considering smaller self storage facilities in growth markets. 

In my case, I have residential rentals in one LLC, commercial properties in another, self storage in a third, and my real estate company operates in a fourth.

Running shoes?

I also learned a lot from AJ Osborne’s Self Storage program.

My ultimate goal is to own 10-20 doors in the next 5-10 years how would you attack this if you were in my shoes paying down debt and planning to make your first big move toward a rental.

So far we have just done SFR homes, but looking to eventually work up to small commercial projects (multi-family, storage, hospitality).

If you were in my shoes with $50,000 to invest today, and focusing on Charlotte, NC, or Louisville, KY, how would you proceed?

Get into some other facet; money lending, storage units, flips whatever but you my friend are NOT cut-out to be a landlord.