Trust your gutI have has great success with posting on Craigslist multiple times a day and Apartments.com, but not sure how your market responds on those sites. 

Capitalize on all of the free resources this site has available at your disposal.

Welcome to the site.

also - for some clarification on my current rentals - the first we purchased as a second home (we rent as our primary residence in CA and wanted a place closer to family for when we visited) and turned it into a rental after we owned it for a year.

I wouldd o that if I were in your unique situation.However, the only advice I can give to you is to take advantage of the free resources available to you here on BiggerPockets. 

What part of Michigan do you plan to visit/ invest in? 

Just do a lot of reading here on the forums and listening to podcasts and you will quickly turn up a dozen names to research further.You can also look at crowd-funding sites like Realty Mogul, Realcrowd,  Fundrise,  Arborcrowd.

I’m supposed to close this Friday assuming I get all of the U&O items checked off by then.

Poke around this site for that term and you'll find a lot of really helpful info about refinancing out of a Hard Money loan.Hope that's helpful!

If you are dead set on keeping your equipment and cannot keep it on site, I may be able to help you store it.