More than the money and down payment you need to find the deals.

You make money four different ways:1.

We can save and buy a house hack without the money from the sale but it could help.)4.

If you are considering that it would be better to use a good agent like @Ray Hage, you will get a lot more money.

All told, your expenses are $1,333 per month and your rent income is $1,500 a month for a total earnings of $167 per month.If you divide your annual earnings by the amount of money invested, you'll see it's a 4% return.

To achieve cash flow in this high interest rate environment, it will take finding/making a great deal or putting more money down.

EMD is money he is at risk of losing if he can't close the deal.

Some hard money lenders will "offer" 100% financing, but a lot of them are doing a bait and hook strategy and will still be limited to LTV regardless.

Don't buy stuff you don't need just to lower your tax burden.7) Don't worry about it too much - accept the fact that in order to have a big tax bill...it means you (typically) had to make a bunch of money. 

So you're self-managing to save money, but you don't have systems in place to actually manage the property?