We'd be looking for a smaller cottage, preferably not too far from a large body of water, ideally sub $200k.  

This behavior is ideal for scammers!

One of the things I have started doing is looking for the types of chain restaurants that my ideal tenant will want to frequent as they will have already done the market research for me.

I would sell the house and not rent it out. 1031 ideally into multi unit(s) that cash flow well and rent a personal residence in the meantime. 1031 is the key here since you are sitting on a massive gain on sale.

It might not be ideal for you to leave them in place until the moratorium is listed, but it seems like the best option at the moment. 

Ideally, I would love to BRRRR a property, but am worried about finding hard money to initially make an all-cash offer on a place.

1) Consistently - at least once a month, ideally a bit more.

Although not ideal, maybe there is an option to refinance into an FHA loan where the DTI can be higher.

Hello,My sister in law is currently under contract for a house in Aurora Colorado on Hanover St near E Colfax.

Mind you these are MLS listings that I’m looking at, but I’ll be in Chatt Aug 16th and then I can start getting hands on with the areas and working with my realtor to maybe even find something off market in a more ideal area.