The young folks who are affording the larger, more expensive homes closer to the urban areas are receiving large down payments from parents to help out. 30-40% down payments. 

The longer the pre-payment penalty you select, the better your rate will be.

When a sale occurs, you now have a larger tax payment than had you not used the "tax benefits".  

I strongly suspect your best move is to roll the TSP to a Traditional IRA and convert the IRA to a Roth, using non-retirement dollars to pay the income tax, even if you have to borrow the tax liability.

If you are looking to refinance with a rate and term or non-qm option you may be looking at around 6 month season.

I'm wanting to get started in REI but my funding is little to non existent.

I'd recommend talking to a mortgage broker that specializes in non-QM loans including "2nd Home" vacation loans

But, since you're looking to buy a primary residence in California, this might not fit your plans right now.Structured Installment Sale: This is a way to spread out your profit over several years by receiving the payment in installments.

The explanation is fine, but the info is dated and non applicable for today. 

We have a mixed bag of federally subsidized, as well as non-federally subsidized rent assistance programs, many which abide by rent assistance Housing Quality Standards requirements.For Housing Quality Standards, screens are not actually required...if they are present, though, they must be in good condition so as to not posed a cutting hazard or other health and safety riskHope that helps