I won't honor their cr@p with a link.In this generic post, I will try to give you a basic overview of the most common EOY tax strategies, obviously without an actual discussion of each one.

It will familiarize you with the basic terminology and benefits of investing.

My basic assumption is I would be trading a certain level of cash flow for increased appreciation over a period of 10 years.

Personally, I'd prefer dollar-tree ones (if basic, uncluttered look) over none in the room (bedroom, whatever) because I want to encourage trash being put away.

If I gave you a list of 100 deals on a sheet of paper with just a few basic pieces of information you could apply the 1% rule and eliminate the vast majority of them and then only focus on a small number to consider evaluating further.

I'm basically looking for input in the following:Option 1: Buy a couple of properties and split the money from the 1031 exchange for the down payments.

First, I'd suggest getting familiar with the basics of real estate investing—property types, financing, and market analysis.

It's basically dead in most areas.

But basically no take up. 

I flip in areas I'm familiar with but even if not, it's not complicated to formulate comps from basic google searches.