Right now I’m in the phase of:-building credit + savings-wanting to develop my knowledge and skills I’m in the Memphis, TN area and would love to volunteer my time and skills with investors or seasoned people in real estate to grow my strengths.

Not as awesome as the first but more relevant.There you are a successful filthy rich investor making a lil day trip through the Caribbean seas on your fancy yacht when disaster struck.

If you are just rolling the purchase price and rehab costs with less than 6 months seasoning then you would be able to get traditional financing at a decent rate. 7.5 seems really high.

Bookings are down across the across the board for STRs this summer season.   

Season the property for 3-4 months, then do a 65-75% Cash-out ReFi. 

Also after 2019 tax season I will have two years of self employment to include on future loans.

I know that peak rental season is during summer, and most lease are one year long. 

There’s no problem anticipating that rentals will provide for your family there’s 3 things to consider:1) legally set up operations so that your beneficiaries can simply continue them without any kind of weight of going through probate (other wise a little life insurance for probate season can be helpful- this should really be a conversation with your lawyer if you have questions about probate - thankfully @Pat L.’s doing the right thing with the trust).

A property will need to season 6 months from point of purchase in order to get a traditional loan if you are considering to get cash out.There is always a risk that a lender can call the note due in you add it to an LLC but that's a limited risk. 

Someone below or above in a thread mentioned they were lucky enough to get on a call from a seasoned investor.