She is basically renting the home back from me at breakeven, but that is well below area rents. 

A tenant just moved out of one of my units and my property manager charged me $480 to clean the unit to get it ready for the next tenant (he used an external service and charged me at cost). 

. - My last agent had none of these other qualities but she drove from Copperas Cove to Belton (about 30 miles) to show me properties and also facetimed me at work to show the property I ended up buying- if I wasnt an REA I would use her again just for that reason. 

So, here is what I'm thinking - looking for reactions about this plan.1) they continue to hold title to the property but agree to rent the house to me for $0.2) They borrow $250k from me at 0% which comes due after the parent's passing (when they sell the house).3) I can sub lease the house to a third party at $5k per month (or more).4) We set up an option contract where, say within 6mths of both parent's passing, I have the option to purchase the house at an agreed upon price ($1.3M) and they pay 0 capital gains taxes.So, I see it as a win-win.

With the rising rate environment and heaps of market unstability, this does not surprise me at all that you were declined. 

It still made sense to me at that time so I went ahead with the 5.25% rate for the cash out refi.

It would not surprise me at all if you could use that 190k to acquire 3 units each giving you a 10% return (which means your 190k bought a 30% worth of ROI in super rough terms....

I think the best path for me at the moment is to learn all the RE investing basics through discussions on the BP forums and resources on the website, and then work my way into investing through purchasing a home in the bay area and house hacking it.

I heard this quote somewhere but it rings true to me at least still even though I'm not sure where exactly I heard it.  

That leaves me with a relatively small accelerated depriciation for the acquisition, seems like there is more meat on the bone digging through the actual improvements.