When there is a lack of money there needs to be more knowledge as a substitute to reduce the risk to a seller.Back to motivation, a seller who offers SF is an automatic red flag, every time.

Is there anything taxes-wise that I can look into in order to reduce this cost, or another method that would allow me to net more at the end of the month?

You also want to focus on the lowest sale prices to reduce your risk, not the pie in the sky sales..

The bank has to sell at a reduced rate to stop the pitfall.

How do you not know about the capital demands said capital must be able to address to reduce the lending risk??

If you think of it that way, the loan will have paid over $22,900 in those 7 years ($25,138.93 or $4,217 principal and $20,921 interest) The principal balance of the loan will have only been reduced by the $4,217.

The more I'm reading about real estate investing, the more I'm thinking about reducing my 401k contributions to meet my employer match (reducing completely seems to be leaving money on the table) and diverting those funds to buy rental properties.

For example, if I wanted to put in new floors, new carpet, etc wouldn't these all count as expenses and I would get basically a 40% discount off these expenses(until I hit the 25k limit) since it would be reducing my taxes at my marginal rate.

Lenders will want to reduce the loan amount if you have excess amounts paid in, they will like to see available money applied to the deal in most cases.

Please take a look and first can you suggest how to market it so that I can get offers even if they are below asking so I can go back to the seller with that info in order to reduce the price.