Especially if you are going to need some capital for renovations, I would put down less initially.

It is an old housing stock, so yes there is a little sharper due diligence needed on potential capital expenses - but there is also a boatload if opportunity if you’re good at sizing up those costs.

I agree with @Dan Mackin that COS is a good prospect for long term buy and hold, given the diversity and growth estimates, but I'd suggest Fountain / Security as a starting place for you, not knowing anything beyond the fact that you are serving this great nation (and THANK YOU, sir, for that!). 

If I sit on this, my capital is tied up. 

Raising capital is already a time-consuming, challenging, and risky enough exercise.

For a while, I was trying to start a business of running vacation rental properties but ran into financing issues as I had an extremely hard time trying to get sufficient capital to expand quickly. 

Has anyone used Atlas Business Capital out of Scottsdale, AZ? 

What are the 3 F's of startup capital?

A very common tactic is to change classes of real estate using the 1031 exchange to capitalize on cycling stages of different types within a market period. 

I work with Paige Solberg and Lending Concepts as well as Eric Mayu at Mayu Capital.