Put $40k prepayment towards my current loan, effectively earning me 5.75% interest on the cash (penny saved is a penny earned).

I have been in real estate for effectively my whole life as an employee but am looking to build my own business/portfolio. 

First off, be careful of the influx of messages that will come in from all the sharks ;) There are actually other ways to achieve similar effects of a 1031 without having to jump through those hoops. 

How effective are those numbers now?

Historically, we’ve seen that while many areas of the economy suffer from inflation-related side effects, investors focused on residential real estate tend to fare quite well during times of inflation.

These types of tenants also tend to take better care of the property.I might also question the effectiveness of your property manager.

Investing as a group is a great way to effectively lower minimums on syndication investments as well as increase diversification as you can get into more deals with the same amount of capital.As you can see, I am a big fan of group investing - let me know if I can help in any way!

Historically, we’ve seen that while many areas of the economy suffer from inflation-related side effects, investors focused on residential real estate tend to fare quite well during times of inflation.

I was told this would be the safest option so that any restrictions made in the future would not effect me, is this true?

If the PM is listing through AirBNB/VRBO you'd still pay those fees on bookings through those sites.In fact, I would bet a lot of PM companies calculate gross revenue before those fees are taken out, so they're actually charging you their 15-30% management fee on the VRBO/Airbnb fees you're paying, effectively INCREASING the Airbnb/vrbo fees, not lowering them.