The money that people try to save by not using a Realtor typically results in longer days on market and a lower selling price.

How much lower rate do you think you can get on a 15 year loan?

Once you retire, your lower income and write-offs from rentals should reduce the taxes you pay on the 457. 

I would also consider the route of not house hacking if your current rent/mortgage is less than what you can get out of rent from the lower unit.  

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

@Chris RendallAlways the lower number of the appraisal or the sales price.

Since you’re buying and not refinancing like we were, hopefully this will work out in your favor and allow you to grab a  lower purchase price.

The unit stays vacant for an extended period of time, and you have to lower the rent to fill it again.  

I have a background in construction, I'm not a GC but I work for a large commercial GC at my day job and feel that this may give me potential leg up in this niche/ stratgey.The half-baked idea I have now is to build a container house duplex and live in it and rent out the other half.

@Daniel AntonettiIn general, not much you can do after closing.If you had made specific requests about the tenants in your sales agreement then you might be able to go after the previous seller for not complying.But, if you didn't have specific language in there, the owner is still able to renew leases.Even if you had Estoppel Letters, it wouldn't prevent the seller from doing something sneaky at the last second like signing a lower rent lease in exchange for doing fixes the seller didn't want to deal with out of pocket.