We have been using an excel sheet for tracking expenses, but need to move to excel for tax purposes and creating reports.  

Sure, I know of one post-foreclosure in North Texas right now, they can't give it away or re-purpose...

For further comparison purposes - even LIHTC affordable, 2000 vintage deals with 60% AMI restricted rents that don't burn off until 2050 in Vancouver/Portland are trading to 6.00% caps... 

I'm also considering a 401K distribution or perhaps a ROBS strategy to free up more capital to scale and the purpose of the post is to weigh the pros, cons and feasibility of these options. 

It is cleaner for my bookkeeping purposes.

However, you make some good points about those funds meaning different things for different purposes - I could outright buy some properties and not even make the down payment on others.i would lean toward favoring something within around 100 miles of detroit or dallas as i know those areas fairly well. i'd also lean toward multi-family especially if i could house-hack one of the units....also, i was underwater for 15 years!

The purpose is to curtail the risk to non-accredited investors who may not be as knowledgeable about crowdfunding or investing in general.

I'm thinking of buying a place in another state and officially making it my "home" (for tax purposes, for homeowner write-off, etc.) but the majority of my income will be from Idaho and my son will finish high school here. 

Cozy.co isn't recognizing him for the purposes of tenant screening/background check.

Our only knowledge with Real Estate investing was with my relocations due to promotion or needs of my company (sell our home & buy a new one).