Networking with other investors and professionals in your area can also provide valuable opportunities and insights.Set Clear Goals and Plan: Define your financial goals for the next 10 years and create a plan to achieve them.

I've recently seen people giving advise to take out a HELOC as a means to pay your normal everyday expenditures including bills, and at the same time, taking your paycheck from job and applying it every month towards your mortgage payment.

As long as it was "free" buyers often worked with a family member, now that it costs money buyer agents will have to interview to get the job, which means a lot of agents will be gone.

Good opportunities still exist.

In a rural area with no jobs, your odds of finding a good tenant or a good buyer are limited. 

My regular job provides good cash flow and allows me to save up about $5-10k/mo after maxing out 401k.

I don't want to sit around waiting for interest rates to drop and pass on some good opportunities, but I'm also not sure if I want to pay that much in interest. 

However, two things that are a big unknown and was wondering if this would automatically disqualify me... 1) I had a foreclosure on a condo that finalized in Feb 2019, so more than 5 years ago. 2) I work for myself and been doing this officially for 1 year only (prior to that I had a high W2 job).

So, absent new information, there is little known opportunity for treasury or mortgage rates to decline (it's already baked into long term rates) and only risk that rates will increase if expectations are wrong. 

Due to my job, I have very little time to actively manage and am requiring everything from furnishing, renovating, and handling the daily responsibilities of managing a short term rental.