Our next step is to pull equity out of a property an use it for our next purchase.  

I was thinking about holding the 17K to help me get a hard money loan so that I can do a deal, but I starting thinking that maybe my first step should be to get my debts down so that I can do deals without the worry of them not getting excepted because of the debt to income ratio.

A person "notifies" or "gives" a notice or notification to another by taking steps reasonably calculated to inform another person whether or not the other person actually comes to know of it.

Legally, what should be my next step?

I am pretty sure the seller financing will go through however have to look into the steps of working with a Title company and setting up escrow.

Over the phone I find it difficult to differentiate me from the people only looking to make a quick buck because some Youtube Personality says they can do it with 5 simple steps. 

I'll follow some of the steps you took, and I have thought of the 203k loan to wrap everything up, but need to do some more research on that.

Challenges?

We're looking at this new job as a stepping stone, so we would likely move again. 

I get great tax write offs, I live off the cash flow and I invest because I love the process and the challenges of finding great off market properties.Your mileage may vary.