Would it be a good idea to bring in a local real estate agent or some professional to walk through the house and figure out if there are things which I should take care of to reduce the liability prior to renting it out?

Hello,I am exploring the possibility of converting some or all of my Rollover IRA account into ROTH IRA account to reduce my tax burden when I retire.

If you can reduce your personal liability on the mortgage to $400 per month and that is acceptable to you, then that is great.

Obtain a home equity loan to help pay for our new home and reduce/eliminate personal asset?

Welcome to BP 🙂 I’ve never done a house hack before, but I have sublet out rooms in a house that I’ve rented in order to reduce my overhead, while still enjoying the amenities that a house has to offer (mainly garage & backyard).

Suggestions:1) get good rental property insurance that covers loss of rents for covered reasons: fires, etc; 2) be a good landlord and treat your tenants as customers you will reduce liabilities with an ounce of prevention; 3) Get umbrella insurance which also helps to covers your assets in a suit; 4) IF you get an LLC you must run it as a separate business or it will not provide you any protection (I'm not an attorney, but that's my understanding); meaning if you combine your business funds with your personal funds, they will be able to demonstrate it behaves as a straw company and really the courts should ignore it as a separate legal entity (my understanding of the risks).  5) LLCs can make lending/borrowing more difficult, until you want to borrow non-conforming loan funds (non-Freddie/Fannie) or you hit your 10-15 property limits with Freddie/Fannie, at which time you'll need to go to commercial lenders who will WANT the property/loan to be in an LLC.  6) As you grow your portfolio keep in mind conventional lenders will look at your DTI (debt to income) ratios. 

To me, there's a big difference between someone who has a "low" credit score because they have 10 credit card accounts past-due or in collections, and someone who has a "low" credit score because they have a medical account in collections and a $3,500 monthly mortgage that's over 90 days past due and is about to go into foreclosure (hence the reason they're looking for a place to rent). 

As for credit, it was excellent a year ago when I bought my personal home 740+, but I'd be willing to guess it's probably dropped to around 700ish due to increased credit utilization as a result of not working for medical reasons.

Once AL started re-opening from Covid19, we reduced the rent price to $1,850, with a first month $500 move in incentive discount.

However, if you have plenty of savings and/or income to invest and want to save your time and reduce risk just buy move-in-ready property (or cosmetic rehab only) off the MLS or in good solid rental areas.