Being involved in real estate management has awarded me some extra space.

I'm planning on buying a rental when I have 80k in savings which could be soon.On a side note if I do lose my job, that might be the extra push I need to get into RE full time.

But if I were you, before I do anything, I would househack by buying a 2-unit or 3-unit with a fha loan or some other low down payment loan, living in one unit, and renting out extra spaces or units.

It will be worth the extra fees for the extension so you don't have to deal with the headaches of having the lender coming down on you.  

That extra $140K would give me a lot more to work with for the rehab and I can value add by creating a legal extra unit.

There is also the benefit of having an extra layer of anonymity that comes from having the LLC own your properties.

I am still paying the tax amount that the previous owner was paying, so I know that I will have to cough up 4500 extra based on the selling price that I purchased it for.

Don't put it into your bank acct (hmmm... legal issue here, the state REQUIRES a bank acct for security deposits ... so, maybe check with your attorney first).Anyplace that processes pmts will have to report and every bank acct will do so, as well (two extra numbers on the 1099 you already get that shows interest/dividends).Maybe you can get around with cash apps - of course, most of those forbid commercial pmts, such as rent (and Zelle doesn't work with my business acct at all, only with personal accts .... which gets back to the bank will report it anyway) -- if you get caught, expect to get dunned for business charges (my Paypal is business, so I don't worry about using it and have trained tenants on how to use it if they don't want fees added to their rent pmts).

Lol -- the $123 difference is more than I thought but your purchase price is higher than I thought it would be from the title.With the payments sooo similar (4% difference), and the interest rate not too different, I'd save the 10k down payment (less the MI 3k pre-paid difference) and pay the extra monthly.

Better to overestimate for them, vs surprise you with an extra $2200 you didn't plan for.