and lead me to wanting to learn about passive income, and acquiring financial freedom.

@Kevin MasonNotes and lending to other established real estate investors can be a good way to passively grow the account balance.

I would get the capital gains exclusion on the unit I lived in.

How can a wholesaler gain from a rental property that is still occupied and gets good rents

There is no requirement to pay salaries or payroll tax for passive real estate investing.  

No landlord headaches vs holding for appreciation, but wow-the short-term capital gains (ordinary income rate) plpus the self-employment tax b.s. really reduces your profit.

Note: I have a great job and will be investing capital of my own, I’m looking at the long term equity gains of using someones capital to grow quickly, I can also pay his cash flow out of pocket if I get in a bind, so I’m not worried about falling through on my contract to give 10%, which really is very achievable.

The problem here is that these typically need to be passive, so this would not jive with our intent to be GP's in a syndication.

I've been doing passive and active REI for almost 20 years now....mainly multifamily

I’ve been listening and reading about Tom Wheelwright’s suggestion on cashing out on 401k/IRA and taking the penalties and investing it in real estate since new tax laws would be in favor of investors.With new tax laws (2017) and the many deductions (bonus depreciation and doing a Cost Segregation), would passive investors benefit by cashing out their previous employer's 401k or traditional IRA to invest in real estate?