I've read through the FHA guidelines and you're right, it kind of takes away the main benefit of going with an FHA loan in that case. 

We refinanced our house several years ago to decrease the length of our loan to 15 years which increased our monthly payment a little but has allowed us to make faster gains toward the pay off. 

When the money is out of the TSP I am assuming it is no longer acquiring the gains/losses from sitting in its fund.

I personally would look at areas you know in both cities, and see if there are any city plannings or updates going that could potentially benefit in the long term.  

Tell them you'll give them a few hundred bucks (or more if the deal is good enough) at closing.Keep in mind though that small towns are a lot of work for little benefit because you'll likely never turn up another deal in Edison so you just wasted a bunch of time building up relationships there.

I would NOT QUIT your job until you start gaining traction with wholesaling business.

Trying to think win-win to preserve friendship and also benefit rental business. 

I feel like I'm gaining a lot of general investing knowledge through BP, but still struggling to know how to locate and purchase my first deal.It would be great to connect with local people as well as receive any good advice.

My lender says it makes sense to at least refinance even if I wasn’t cashing out to get rid of PMI and have increased tax benefits from the increased interest rate.

My wife is extremely risk averse so this slowly built her confidence in us leveraging my professional skill sets outside of the W2 for greater financial gain.