Can I still depreciate it until the buyer makes the final mortgage payment?

If at all possible, I'd suggest beginning with a house hack because it should cut down your own monthly expenses while you build equity and there are great low down payment programs available for owner-occupied financing.

Step1: get a pre-approval letter from a lender. this pre-approval will tell you how much of a monthly payment you can afford and will give you a purchase price to stay under (60-75 days out)Step2: find a realtor to begin working with. if you don’t know a realtor, ask around!

These homes have an annual COC return of 70% off of the down payment.

Calculate the expected cash flow after accounting for mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, vacancies, property management, and other expenses.

So if you are planning on keeping it, my understanding is that you would only need to live there for 12 months in order to qualify for low down payment loan options if you wanted to purchase another owner occupied property.

Listed Rent would be between 3500-4200 per month depending on a local property management company strategy.We have assessed our budget and goals while in Europe and would not want to maintain a mortgage in USA (vacant) AND a rental payment in EU.further details: we are 3 years into the loan at 2.625% int, primary and only residence owned, house will need 2 new AC in next 2 years, water heater, and driveway repairs, would only rent with a property management company as we will NOT want to manage from abroad. 

You personally can’t pay loan payments, all payments must come out of an IRA.

This will affect how much you will need for down payment.

Even trying to do the BRRRR is hard and takes a lot more work to find the right deal. unless i do the work myself which i am willing to.I am young and quite new to the REI space but for the last several years i have consumed RE knowledge daily thru a couple trusted sources. i understand what im trying to do is definitely no easy task but with immigrant parents i was raised to work hard so i will adapt to whatever is necessary.