@Antoine Philidor, vague advice but necessary: network with investors investing in your respective market of interest.

Keep the current house, cash-out refi at higher rate for cash, and convert to investment property (assume 0 cash flow per month).

In approx 18 months I intend to invest in multifamily as an active investor.

It will help alleviate stress and help me ease into finding the right fixer upper that is worth the time and money to invest.

Learning how to invest in a house isn't that complicated.

My husband and I are new to real estate investing.

If you decided to sell and purchase another investment property you would be able to do a 1031 exchange, and defer all the tax and the recapture.

When a tenant moves out, transfer the deposit back to Checking so it's ready to apply towards expenses or refund the Tenant.If you end up with excess funds in the Checking account, I recommend you transfer it to a third account designated explicitly for future investments.

@Jason GriffinRecommend exploring as many sources as possible to get referrals AND cross-reference them to get as much accurate information as possible.Check out NARPM.com, BP’s Property Manager Finder (BiggerPockets: The Real Estate Investing Social Network), etc.Also, encourage you to learn from the mistakes of others - by reading posts here on BiggerPockets about owners not having their expectations met by their current Property Management Company.

I would love to partner with someone on this deal, but in the event that I can't, is there such thing as an assignment fee for finding a great investment property and turning it over to someone?