Don't cancel the insurance-- inform your insurance carrier that it is no longer owner-occupied and take the hit on the rate but keep the same carrier-- again nobody at the bank is watching that closely.

To paraphrase Warren Buffett:Successful investing is less about hitting on all of the big gains and more about avoiding all of the big losses.

If you need help with your EPA, hit me up on a PM, i can email you one of mine.

If you run these numbers, lets say 150k is your avg, when comped out to rents in the area try to hit 1200-1300 that puts you at 8-8.6% roughly which is nice.

That brings me to another concern, though, if I don't roll that money into another house, I will take an unwanted, possibley unecessary, tax hit....

Just take it out and take the hit on the early withdrawal now.

I cannot manage, I just can't - I work fairly long hours as a lawyer and it is not an efficient use of my time.

As always @annbellamy hits nail on head...If a hard money allows you to move forward on a profitable investment after paying the lender, you should strongly consider it, understanding there is risk in the event of nonperformance.

Now, we live in southern oregon, with a small-ish town (200k people i believe), and we were hit super hard by the boom-bust. houses that were selling for 1.5million+ are now selling for somewhere around 300k.

If you can tell me the numbers you are trying to hit I can suggest different avenues of real estate where it might be possible to achieve it.