Not sure I can swing the financing for this...2.

It can take awhile to get into the swing of things and begin seeing your hard work turn into profit. 

Last few significant events to hit the Permian basin. 2008 - This was a bust that resulted in the Permian basin becoming a ghost town.  2010 - recovery moving a a turtle's pace 2012 - The second bust in 4 years all oil and  gas  production that had recovered got spanked again... ghost towns became vacant 2016 - recovery in full swing 2019 - oil and gas production is in full swing. 

You might find a private lender to do a second.Other uses of equity include pledges in other transactions, I might buy another property, seller finance that and pledge say 20% of that price in lieu of a larger down payment, in other words, I buy a 100K home seller finance, pledge under my security agreement or deed of trust 20K on another property and obtain 100K (might be 90K) to swing the deal. 

Insurance payouts are decreasing and overhead is increasing, so it sounds like this is ego driven bad advice on multiple fronts.I have seen significant appreciation in the suburbs, and they are often less likely to have significant value swings like you have in downtown areas.

I am in a FB group about AZ STRs, and the talk all week has been "the Superbowl, the biggest Golf tournament, and Spring Training are all coming to Phoenix this week, why isn't my STR (that I just started) not booked?"

It swings both ways.  

@Ryan Keeton a local agent that I golf with asked if I was interested.

As I'm sure you saw while driving through the area, the golf course at the bottom (designed by Gary Player) is pretty decent.

Not a huge swing in the deal- just another element to account for.