Then house-hack a duplex. and reduce/eliminate your living expenses for a very low cost.

Yes there are small businesses moving here and yes there is growth in the tourism industry (we hope....post-COVID), and yet the new administration wants to eliminated/severely the oil and gas industry, which tend to have higher paying jobs.

This is an up-front cost you can pay that eliminates PMI payments.  

Eliminating interest expenses and lowering your minimum monthly payments can help improve your overall credit, which in turn could allow you to qualify for better mortgage rates and features when you do buy a new home.Risk/Reward Trade-OffsIf you’re holding cash for an extended time horizon — not months, but years — your risk/reward balance may shift toward other investments, including stocks, bonds or mutual funds.

If you are able to house hack those properties and you are suggesting that you can increase rent to the point where you are making 100-200 in cash flow (I'll assume you ran all your numbers accurately); then the advantage that house hacking is that it gives you the ability to eliminate your largest monthly expense (housing).

Either way gather info on all of the above and start eliminating options that don't make sense or fit your goals.

This structure allows you to bypass the custodian and do all of the investment and transactions on the LLC level, which is investment of the IRA.And if you are self-employed, even better option is truly self-directed Solo 401k which allows you to eliminate the custodian altogether and be the trustee of your own Solo 401k trust.

With cash only, your cash on cash will be much lower without leverage but you will eliminate a lot of risk associated with leverage so consider the trade offs.Forming an entity with multiple partners will require an operating agreement with the duties and responsibilities for each owner in writing.

Making it our primary residence again is not an option, so no way of using the 121 exclusion there.I hadn't previously considered using a 1031 exchange to delay/eliminate cap gains taxes because I don't really want to own another rental or investment property.

So instead of having a single 12-month segment with a floor of zero and a cap of, say 9%, you will have 12 rolling 12-month segments.While this doesn't eliminate the risk of having a zero year, it certainly mitigates that risk.