In my limited experience the better tenants don’t wait til right before they need to move to look, they look and want to secure a place to live a month or so out, or at least a few weeks out.

I'm currently reading The Book on Managing Rental Properties, which has also been very helpful and I can't wait to read J Scott's books on flipping houses.

Louis, my first priority is to buy a primary residence (waiting to sell my house).

What you'll have to decide is whether that few thousand dollar difference is worth the hassle of being a landlord.

Wait two months to make a deal with only me being on the loan but using the money from this joint account.

Here are my current options (beware, some of these may not make sense – this is my first time so I don’t know the difference between smart/stupid moves yet):A) Get property appraised and get a HELOC to use as a down payment for a property with FHA loan (2-4 Unit)B) Hope home value increases and sell when the equity >= a down payment on a 2-4 unitC) Remodel property and sell when the equity >= a down payment on a 2-4 unitD) Remodel property, Get property appraised and get a HELOC to use as a down payment for a property with FHA loan (2-4 Unit)E) Save money and wait until market rent >= cashflow, use HELOC/saved money as down payment for 2-4 unitI’m thinking option E is the wisest move but I want some other opinions to see if there's a faster way – any insight is helpful since I’m just learning.

I am waiting on my security clearance and working on my Real Estate license.Nice to meet ya'll and add me!

But the reality is that hundreds of thousands use 1031s successfully every year.  

I would not do this because I think a lot of tenants would either try to fix it themselves or wait until the problem is really bad to notify you.

I don't know exactly how much a new lagoon would cost, but in the hundreds of thousands.