@Jason MorrisI suggest inquiring with a lawyer for the question on personal guarantees and the corporate veil.

My suggestion would be to discuss your plans with a lender before you choose to refi, a good lender will give you several options for financing a project based on your assets and goals. 

I suggest you talk with a good independent agency who has specialists in commercialreal estate, rather than dealing with a captive agent.

Unlike you I was unable to find a partner but what a few people have suggested to me is to try to find real estate agents who can hook you up.  

@Anthony MikolichThere are several banks that do HELOCs on Investment Properties.The one that I know is East West Bank: East West BankI understand there are a lot of suggestions to do a refi, but there are two problems with that:1) That's not what the OP asked and 2) There are REAL reasons why to use a HELOC... which is why it's a Loan Product that is available.HELOCs give you another choice to use money temporarily and is better than HARD Money.I will wind up getting huge discounts on properties with an All Cash Offer.The discount I get can be upwards of $100k on a $1.5 Million property.BELIEVE ME.... it is worth it.

If only for 1-2 years and you want to be safe, 2 suggestion:1) TIPS bond funds (Treasury Inflation Protected Security)

Anybody have suggestions for good managers they've worked with?

Suggest you work out the numbers cash flow, ROI etc.Need more input.....

The actual management of the property does not take up a significant amount of time (depending on the quality of tenant and property- I would suggest both being good to great) but leasing the property does take special skills that are better "contracted out."

If you do a proper "live in flip" you can potentially avoid paying capital gains tax if you own and live in the property for 2 years.Also in the situation you suggested - you want to pay money out to someone before you pay taxes...otherwise it will get taxed twice. once by you and then by the investor.