If you have equity use to pay off all credit cards, if no equity short sell and pay off smallest cc balances first and snowball to the nextGet rid of both cars, plenty of cheap beaters or if you need a nicer car for ubet/lyft then downgrade the expensive one, get a focus or civic, roll the 7k into the loan and it should at least cut the payment in halfGet rid of cable and anything that is considered a want. 

Usually the advice on a personal residence is to choose whichver best meets your needs and desires...life is short.

Depending on your investment in the stocks...short term gain vs long term gain your tax rate would be reduced anyway. 

I fully intend to rent out several of the rooms, possibly in a Short Term situation through AirBnB type sites, some rooms to what I hope to be my daughters college friends that have Mom & Dad to foot the bill for them :) Aside from that using a small MultiFamily is a great idea as well as even doing a live in fix and flip, these are all ways to house hack and unless you just can't stomach having "roommates" or living next door to your tenants then I just can't see a downside. 

Therefore, we made a “profit” of $10k and I’m curious how I can avoid paying short term capital gains taxes on this land.

Hey,I've got a lot of advice for scaling your airbnb business however here's a short video on automation.Good luck!

So in short you are going to be paying very high property tax in Texas and then turn around and pay even more in CA state tax.

Can you motivate them by suggesting to go through a short sale before they default on the property?

We lived in New Jersey for a short while, same story, we get water from local wells and my wife only drinks bottled water.

In addition to what Wayne said the seller will have to pay imputed interest gain and will make almost or maybe ZERO cash flow if he takes this to an accountant .. or anyone who knows anything about these seller carry backs your going to have push back I suspect unless your paying WAY over market.I have sold a lot of my OREO over the years with ZERO % owner carry but always set them up short term.. 30 months 40 months that sort of thing ..