You are generally going to either buy it at 95% of value or what is owed, which ever is lower. 

That is lower than market and puts you in a cashflow-neutral situation, but it is unlikely your residents can afford that.

Sherman does seem interesting though because of the lower cost and growth potential.  

My question again stems around using seller financing to allow them to receive a consistent monthly pay of X amount and delay/lower their tax bill in the short term instead of going through a lender to borrow 800k+ causing my mortgage to be significant part of our income roughly 40-50% of take home -  which we are approved for LOL.

Risk entails everything from lawsuits to lack of diversity in investments to low rates of return to high exposure to vacancy (more units theoretically lowers vacancy exposure).

The lower unit is a basement/guest suite.

As already mentioned, you could sell via seller financing to lower AGI, as all you would have to claim is the payment income - until balloon payment received.Did know an investor that had 14 properties paid off and he moved into one every two years to then sell with the $250k single exemption.

This could lower your resale value. 

Two things are certain, 1) taxes are lower today than they've ever been in the past 80 years. 2) they are certain to be higher in the future.We should all be focused on paying the lowest “lifetime tax bill” not the “lowest tax bill this year”.By paying 20% and settling up my long-term capital gains is not a bad deal.

Then the prices lower towards the date and you end up booking at a low price or worse just being vacant.I think manually pricing your STR'S is a much better approach.So many people are looking for the next cool software app to buy a subscription to.