One of the many benefits of being a real estate property owner is the many tax strategies and laws that help keep a substantial amount of money in your pocket.

One of the main reasons we are interested in doing an STR is the tax benefits- we paid over $340k in taxes last year with essentially no write offs.

Speaking from someone who has 2 rentals here, 1 long distance - there are benefits to both.

How can I make sure its a residential loan that we both benefit from?

There is no tax benefit- in any way. 

Crowdfunding makes real estate easily accessible, however, in regard to institutional real estate investments, the advice of an expert who works in the industry every day, knows all the players and their track records, and performs due diligence on each offering is a great benefit to you and comes to you at no cost. 

Also, one large benefit I like is the fact that the home is preserved pretty well, because tenants aren't moving their stuff in and out.

By paying off the rental, I can reclaim my VA loan benefit in order to use it to buy a house-hack property when my family moves again (in June of 2022) for very little money down.2.)

In my opinion, investing anywhere in SoCal needs to be thought of as a long term investment for appreciation, tax benefits and loan pay-down.

Rocket mortgage agent saying we can start the process now and they will move very slowly to get the benefits of interest rate towards lower side at the time of closing as we started now with them.