She does not want to take a big tax hit as she is currently retired, and I cannot use conventional financing as I have just changed careers and am no longer loan worthy. 

I'm in my 40s and recently retired from the US Army.Currently working on a 5-10 year plan to build a portfolio of SFH and MFHs. 

I am a beginning investor I guess and have a rather open ended question.Situation being that I moved to phoenix for a new job from VA where i currently have a mortgage that I have rented out and am using a property management to rent it out as I couldn't sell it, but at the same time Ive always wanted to build my real estate holdings as income for retirement.

He typical spoke to groups of those at or near retirement age that were wanting better returns on their money.  

Reserves can be the form of cash in your checking/savings accounts or even your retirement accounts.  

When it comes to financing a deal, What's the best way to build a solid Real Estate portfolio for Retirement??

There is always that one neighbor who is a problem - they have too much time on their hands, bored sitting around home on disability or retirement, and always trying to rile up problems for lack of any other activity in their lives.As such, when a neighbor calls me about "fighting couples" or "drug dealing" or "too many people coming through late at night", I then ask them, "So you called the cops, right?".

i'm looking to do a semi-retirement project/investment. 

A better strategy would be to self-direct an IRA or other retirement plan to invest in syndications. 

Great you say, but the truth was I didn’t like rehabbing, too much stress for me and retired after one flip.