I have had a long term interest in purchasing an investment property and I'm looking to be smarter about this.

I am looking to see if there are ways to get creative with downpayment on commercial loans.

Since agency loans don't allow you to put the loan in an LLC, ask your wife this. 

I'm looking at it long term and will not need the equity anytime soon.  

Here were the results:Sales Growth: As you can see, Raleigh and Durham are VERY different in terms of Existing Home Sale Counts YoY.

I’m finding a hard time finding comps for a long term rental.

Many banks wont touch deals that are sub 90% occupancy, so you could negotiate short term seller financing to help give you runway to make the building bankable for a refinance while you reposition it.

Please reach out and I can let you know the terms to hang your license with me. 

If you pay down $100K in loan saving you $1K in monthly costs against rental income, or you invest that $100K in something that generates $1K in net income the result is similar.

I also use their virtual credit cards which enables me to assign a card to a specific person, like the cleaner for my STR for example, so when she runs a charge, it automatically drops into the right account in terms of categorizing my expenses.