It can save you prepayment penalties, quicker close, more favorable(aka leanient) terms.

They're always quicker, are unsecured so no need to pay title fees, no collateral so no appraisal costs, and can fund in 5-10 business days.Qualifying for this kind of debt is stritly based on personal credit, income, DTI, etc since there's no collateral, but might be a good option for you!

Because of the quicker close versus conventional lenders, you might be able to negotiate a better price. 

The returns are much better than most tax lien certs will earn and turnover is a lot quicker raising your annual ROI. 

CUT CORNERS ON THE FRONT END AND CASH FLOW PROBLEMS WILL HAPPEN A LOT QUICKER THEN ONE THINKS.

PMI (it requires we live there for about 1 year), we should have enough to put down 20-30% but my thoughts are the less we put down the quicker we can afford to purchase another rental. 

This would be a quicker fix - but more painful.

(I'd obviously prefer to grow quicker than that).

Do houses zoned to decent schools get leased quicker? 

My advice would be to look at an area not too far from you (since flips are a lot more time intensive) that has very low inventory of homes for sale (this means homes typically sell quicker).