In any case, yes you want to run this past a good RE CPA.

Should I sell (use the money to buy other rentals) our current primary residence in Tampa or rent it out?

Rentals create cash flow, and that's what we want as real estate investors, but you need cash on hand for unforeseen circumstances.The AC needs to be replaced, that's $7K to $10K or more depending on the size of the house and if you have one rental, it will eat all your cash flow, same to replace a roof, etc, or if tenant trash the home, you need money to fix it again.To me personally a nice rental portfolio that is healthy consists about 10 units, so if you have an issue with a house the portfolio can cover the repairs and still healthy, but when starting you need to have cash on hand just in caseYes, there are multiple strategies you can use to hack your way to buy your first rental with minimum cash, but I would start wholesaling or fix and flip a few deals to create that cash as fast as possible

We ended up going the HELOC route on that property for a few reasons. 1) the interest at the time was only 5%, which although seemed high, didn't matter too much with our potential property showing a 18% ROI 2) we leveraged a second home loan with 10% down for that new property, so our HELOC withdrawal was relatively small compared to what would be needed for a traditional loan on a rental. 3) I dont think I will see the rates in the 2% again in my lifetime, so figured I should hold on to that "free money" instead of selling it. 

I'm just trying to get an idea of what other people have run into using them.

Earnest money is likely not going to be refunded if we back out now.

She's then at risk of losing her money, but it also means she won't do that to another landlord.

Or go to the county and run your own search on it. pretty easy to do.

Time is money.

Hi All, Been quiet on the forums as we added 2 new properties to our portfolio this year!As time moves on and people are stepping up their design game (As an STR Designer this makes me SOOOO darn happy!), we have foun...