I know in many places you can invest a couple million $$$ to become a citizen and then purchase land.

I don't exactly follow what you mean by "where we are in the cycle," but assuming you mean that RE is at or near it's peak in value, that would not influence my decision, especially if I could pay it off within a couple years with my W2 income.

Do you see any improvement in my strategy. 1) to get more out cash flow on the first property (may be cashout refinance for 30 years the payment goes down in a couple of hundreds of dollars hence increasing my cashflow instead of Airbnb )  2) to get the maximum cash out route to finance the next unit (LOC or cash out refinanced ?) 

I can attest that the folks offering help in this thread are good guys, in particular @Don Harris and @Brian Orr have been very helpful to me in the last couple months as I have been ramping up and getting started.

I have been working at residential architecture firms for a couple of years now, and have extensive knowledge of residential construction, zoning and building code.

I'm eager to start investing though, so I'm wondering what people here would do...wait until after buying the home, save up for another couple of years, then invest in something described above or take a smaller amount of money in the meantime and try a crowdsourced investment. 

Something to ponder when bidding sheriff sale dealshttp://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/florida-couple-stunned-to-learn-458000-paid-for-gulffront-condo-may-be-for/2329213

@Ned Carey has a couple good blog posts on his experience with receivership but I was unable to determine the outcome of his efforts.This is an assignment deal and I haven't yet signed the assignment agreement.

Any owners live in it for the last couple of years?

Expect calls like "I saw you on BP, and I just have couple questions for you."