Here's a concept.. buy a fixer house and use your teens for free labor.

I appreciate you taking time and share your knowledge.

Implementing this strategy will allow you to be more knowledgeable and therefore able to make quicker decisions and secondly others take notice of the investors who are repeatedly transacting in a specific neighbohrood which leads to more opportunties being brought to you. 

I have a real estate portfolio with good amount of equity (most of the portfolio is free and clear), however my personal DTI ratio is too high and that's stopping me from tapping into it to settle some debts and buy more properties.

If so then please explore with someone local and knowledgeable for time frame/costs/etc. if its just a way to buy a cheap property and you have little background, it may make you thoroughly hate RE investing. 

Feel free to reach out with any questions!

Tax free on the gains if your primary residence for 2 out of 5 years.  

There are definitely some key differences between wholesaling and flipping that you'll want to consider as you get started, feel free to post the questions you have about it.

looking forward to submerging myself with all the knowledge I can take in then pull the trigger on a property!

It's free and clear, owe nothing on the property.