I have contacted va benefits and talked to a very unhelpful rep who said I’d need 12 months left or a letter of intent to re-enlist.

The IRS considers debt reduction (when not replaced with additional equity in a new prop) to be the same as cash in terms of its benefit to you, so you would be taxed on the $125k you didn't roll over.If you don't want to carry a mortgage on a new property, you could sell, use $125k to pay off your current loan, and then put in an additional $125k of your own cash to make up the difference, resulting in $325k of equity in the new property/properties, and meeting both the equity and total value rules.So the short answer is YES, it is allowed for you to go from a $325k property to a $200k property while paying off your $125k loan, BUT you will pay taxes on the amount you don't roll into the new property ($125k).

Illinois will get a lot of the benefits, with it being placed so close to the border, but Illinois didn't have to shell out the billions in tax breaks and subsidies that Wisconsin did.  

At the end I am essentially doing 100% financing through by in cash and doing a cash out refi and only leaving $7000 in the property.

single member LLC offers little to no protection.LLCs have other benefits but asset protection for a single member LLC is not one of them.just get good insurance.. that's what you really need..

If the solar is set up for "net metering" tenants would get benefit of the panels.

So essentially I formed a partnership with the private equity investor, and as long as we can prove that he has some activity in the business, he can invest as much money as he wants with me. 

Essentially every deal we’ve done has take about a year from start to finish, mainly due to our one man band contractor but that’s besides the point.

Everyone makes their fair share essentially. 

I'm also proud to offer great military benefits that can help keep your transaction costs as low as possible.It sounds like your goals are very similar to ours.