agree to the extent you can house hack  4 plex in your area with FHA loan you get in with minimal down you live there a year.. you keep your powder dry.with your skills I would look for value add .. buy one do the work  then refi. don't go spending all your cash.. keep no consumer debt and keep collecting cash.. real estate will always be here.. it always has.. be selective and methodical and in a few decades you will be smiling.

The IRS information is only as accurate as the words on the paper and most (99.9%) of the nuance of 1031 comes from case law adaptation that you'll never find on the IRS web site. 

You may need to find more strategic methods to find the right deal.

We reviewed this lease with our lawyer during due diligence, and he said that it would be tough to get out of it through legal methods, but that we should try other methods.  

Jacob, he is feasibly right in the method he probably used to acquire properties he owns as flipping wasn’t a common method of building a rental portfolio in ‘those days’.

You are correct, using this method will require even better deals to be successful.

I absolute love working in REI but simply can't keep up with all the tasks that need to be completed in order to grow effectively (or without becoming overwhelmed with work).Wondering what were the first or best tasks...

There are MANY ways to do this, and if you look through some of my old posts from years back I explained my method in detail.Here is a link to a very good article that goes through almost all of the best methods written by BP's own @Scott Costello.

It would be nice to share costs, and I want to get in the habit of including others in deals, so that I can learn more methods for doing that well, and so I start a deal flow.  

Zoning  often changes and most large cities will have a method to document existing non-conforming properties to allow the property to continue to operate.