I’m literally at the beginning of my journey with some cash in saving for my down payment but I’m looking to buy looking at it from an investor viewpoint versus buying a home for me to live in with my family. 

They also don't lend on quite as good of terms as residential... loans are amortized over a shorter period of time (usually around 25 years, versus 30), and often the interest rate resets after 5 years... but, with that said, you may have more luck going that route if you can't find a residential loan.The other things I would say is to shop your residential loan options.  

We could do a refinance blanket but that wouldn't lower the rate versus doing them individually.

I'm in NC and think it has to do with the way franchise tax is calculated on an S Corp versus an LLC, and that it can be based on assets inside the entity, thus driving it up for real estate holding companies in an S Corp, versus a flat $200 fee for an LLC.

Once I determined that it was not a good cash flowing hold property, and has rental restrictions in the neighborhood, I should have bought and flipped myself versus wholesaling.

I will say it might be easier to get a rate and term refinance versus a cash out refinance.

Those things are in the realm of understanding.I've heard speculation with the permitting and state license, property taxes could triple, but I have not been able to verify.I've also seen some concerns but no validation about sales tax reqs from the state versus what services (vrbo, airbnb, etc) provide as tax documents.I understand a need to increased insurance, but even my agent (who's done a number of STRs) is baffled by some of the requirements, I'm not sure what the annual cost will be to comply.Liability reqs:A

How do I decide where demand is highest (i.e. there are not enough units versus renters) and whether rents/occupancy will pay my mortgage and other expenses each month? 

If you think you may want to be a GP, you should make sure you invest with someone who will be accessible to answer you questions so you can have the best learning experience.If you use your $100K to invest in two syndication deals that have $50K minimums, versus only using the $100K to invest in one property you are diversifying your real estate investments right off the bat, which is a major plus.You **could** find larger return potentials if you buy a property that needs work and BRRRR it versus passively investing in a syndication, but taking on a major renovation project as your first investment project is riskier in my opinion than some of the other options discussed...higher risk higher reward is a saying for a reason :)If you decide you'd rather buy a property personally, I would consider learning towards a long term multifamily rental over a single family or short term rental as your first investment because that helps diversify a bit (multiple units v one), and with STR you will be dealing with more frequent turnovers and furnishing the property, which can require more work unless you hire a PM to handle it like some others mentioned.

Most lenders have varying guidelines around the amount of square footage that can be for business versus residential.