Maybe we could buy a vacation rental before we move out while we have work history and eventually move into it?

There is an old saying in real estate, "find a great deal and the money will come," but this is ONLY true if you have dug your well before you need the water.My advice to you, if you are serious about syndicating deals, is to first figure out the kind of deals you want to buy and develop an "investment thesis" - what you want to buy, where you want to buy it, and why you think this makes sense.  

I'm not entirely sure the product continues to be developed given their asset tracking still says "coming in 2017" but the site continues to operate so I'm going to reach out to the company to see where things are at and whether there's legitimate concern over the product shutting down. 

So in the mean time these battles will be fought in courts and legislatures but eventually STRs will win. 

A point of frustration between the two of your (eventually, not right away) could be how to split income and responsibilities given that it sounds like you would put in 100% of the money and your friend would be putting in sweat equity. 

If you already have 2 SFRs, you should also try to see how you can leverage the equity built in those properties (assuming this is separate than your existing assets) to eventually buy more properties.

I am trying to start flipping to get my feet wet and eventually move into rentals.

I think my ultimate goal would be to own apartment buildings and maybe get into development.

I've been focusing the money that I would be using for investing to pay off credit cards from school as I graduated 8 - 9 months ago and have been working as a Software Developer ever since.

. :)     I'm an architect by education and practice most of my life, but in recent years have also gotten into real estate acquisition, development and management, both in the USA and here in Shanghai.