A couple of things I would have done differently would have been to keep my W2 income as lonnnnnnnnnnng as possible, like longer than you think. 2nd would be do wholesale or sell more in the start rather than trying to keep everything possible as a rental. 

A few weeks back we talked about getting a contract signed with our realtor to sell our home, purchasing land before the sale and then buying another project house.

There are also some other requirements, here is a good general guide:https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/Eligibility/Mortgage-Eli...Can I ask though, what rate did you end up settling for to purchase?

And the longer a property sits on the MLS, the more people tend to think just like you: why are they sitting, and ultimately the price (if they ever sell) starts to go down, in my opinion, further than if they had slightly underpriced it on the from end.Also, Lake Mead and Las Vegas are in the news for bad reasons lately.  

I told this to one of my friends and he gave me the advice of looking up properties for rent on FB marketplace and Craigslist and calling those owners to see if they would be interested in selling their property.

I get that monthly cash flow on the investment property isn’t the only factor and that real estate always goes up and now a days - going forward will probably just go up in a vertical line indefinitely, but if I don’t intend to sell the property due to tax purposes I wouldn’t be capturing the price appreciation, it would be the cash flow. idk, I’m probably overthinking this lol.

Plus once you move out of the property the bank has always let me keep my HELOC as is as long as I didn't sell.  

I am helping my mom to sell her property in East Wenatchee, Washington.

Remember, that the qualification process can take awhile, and the Seller may be prepared to even take a lower price if it means selling the property quicker.  

I’m looking to scale up my portfolio this year by 1031 exchanging or plain selling my single unit portfolio for a multifamily 10+ units.