I highly doubt he is building homes in Texas from his self imposed exile to Portugal to excape massive litigation that was/is coming his way.He is a marketing guy and receives a commission for referring you to the builder developer who actually owns the properties.. at least that was his SOP in the past. 

I would like to be able to afford my whole mortgage at 100% vacancy in a disaster scenario, which puts me at buying houses less than 200k at the current interest rates including expenses and insurance.

She found us a home that hit our specs (including a wonderful landlord allowing us to sublease) and charged us a finder’s fee of an entire month’s rent (18k).

In my case, I have residential rentals in one LLC, commercial properties in another, self storage in a third, and my real estate company operates in a fourth.

I'd need to know more information to determine myself if I were assisting you (hypothetically, of course, since we aren't allowed to advertise our services through this medium), but from the surface level it does sound like you do qualify for the 121 exclusion.

Condotels usually keep a hefty percentage such as 20 or 25% of the rental revenue......But there are a handful of these that DO allow you take yours our of their rental pool and self-rent. 

Is that for your entire personal tax return with the properties included? 

  $100k long-term cap gain minus selling costs isn't enough tax for most to sweat missing the 121 exclusion. 

.  -- I'm currently taking a property management course to learn how to self-manage my current property and future properties going forward.

Hi Margarita-Great question.There are many mental blocks and friction points to buying your first property.First off, just buying property outside of a first or second home to use is not done by most people and buying your first home is a major purchase for most people.That means the people in our immediate sphere of influence are not thinking about buying investment property, they see it as risky and out of a sense of protecting you or themselves encourage you not to do it.I remember having the same mental blocks and fears you probably do thinking about buying your first property or first investment property.The most critical thing to overcoming these mental blocks is self education and surrounding yourself with the best team of people to help you.An investor friendly Realtor who can refer you to an investor friendly lender, title company or closing office, property inspector, property manager, and insurance agent.Real estate is relational and having the best team will keep you out of the weeds.To Your Success!