Rearrange photos, change payment from one to two payments, etc. 

Simply gifting him half the property now wouldn’t immediately allow him to claim the exclusion without fulfilling this residency requirement, I don't believe.One thought would be to use a HELOC to pull just enough equity out of the current home and use it to buy a smaller home, or at least the down payment.

Deduct NEW property taxes after you buyDeduct home insurance costsDeduct maintenance percentage, typically 10%Deduct vacancy+tenant nonperformance percentage(we recommend 5% for Class A, 10% Class B, 20% Class C, good luck with Class D)Deduct whatever dollar/percentage of cashflow you wantNow, what you have left over is the amount for debt service.Enter it into a mortgage calculator, with current interest rate for an investment property, to determine your maximum mortgage amount.Divide the mortgage amount by either 75% or 80%, depending on the required down payment percentage - this is your tentative price to offer.If the property needs repairs, you'll want to deduct 110%-120% of the estimated repairs from this amount.Be sure to also research the ARV and make sure it's 10-20% higher than your tentative purchase price.As long as the ARV checks out, this is the purchase price to offer.It is probably significantly below the asking price.

For the property I purchase, I’d like to keep my monthly mortgage payments at $2,000 or less.I prefer a turn-key property since this is my first rental, and I want to start generating monthly cash flow immediately without the delay of repairs or managing two mortgages.

Down Payment: 20% of the purchase price, equal to $43,0003.

You can run one-off searches for phone numbers and email addresses, and they often have promos for new users.Spokeo for Professionals: While not specifically real estate-focused, it’s a reliable option for finding contact info for individual property owners, especially for one-off searches.Forewarn: This is great for verifying contact details and gives a bit more intel on leads.

QB really is not made well for landlords and landlords leave QB every day for better software, payment processing is really expensive, and with QB there's no tenant portal for your tenants to schedule payments or push maintenance requests. 

I cash flow them to buyers on lease options with a hefty option payment up front to me.

They have failed to renew my entities with the Secretaries of State multiple times, have billed me wrong amounts, and GREATEST OF ALL, have cost my business ~$50K in cumulative TAX PENALTIES due to negligence in filing for a tax extension, failing to walk me through my tax filings and needed payments, and failing to file an abatement promptly.

The strategy I'm following for my first house hack is to acquire a multifamily property (duplex, triplex, quadplex) or SFH w/ an ADU (or potential for an ADU) as I am mainly looking to simultaneously acquire my first property and subsidize my mortgage payment.