This new construction home that I am planning to buy in a big neighborhood, however the street that the house is on backups to a gas station with the gas station being about > 500ft away with about a green belt of more than 50ft in between.

My plan is to live in it for 1-2 years while house hacking one of the bedrooms.

@Amy Perry what are you plans for the place?

So excited to have my first property and I plan to hold for the long term.

First thing we did is plan early (but never plan early enough).

If you plan on being a buy and hold investor then you should be prepared to handle capex events on all of your properties.

I plan on doing more research on Bigger Pockets, but any overall advice is great. 

if you plan to use it as a 2nd home as well as lease it out, conventional loan will allow you to just put 10% down. 

We are definately planning at refinancing as the next step but need to resolve the partnership before that.

Yes a judge can still proceed with the sale even with a suggestion of BK and the only way a judge can stop it typically is if the borrower files a temporary restraining order, which lasts 15-30 days and must be a valid reason - the reason of "I am going to file BK" is not a valid reason to give a TRO as the borrower can file BK and then has time to complete submitting their plan.