What would you do in my situation?

[Matt Mach]

Very new to BP but I'm very happy to have found it. Obviously whatever I decide, or am able to do, is my choice but I wanted to hear what other people would do in my present situation. 

Background on me. I'm 32, married, no kids. Bought a small condo in 2007 for 115k. I was able to refinance in 2012, rent out my condo to cover the mortgage and condo fee (1100), got my parents to "loan" me out 75k to put 20% down on a 2 family (duplex?) that I bought for 378k, we live in the smaller portion. It was, and still is, in need of work so I pulled out 50k last year to consolidate credit card bills and upgrade the house. I just broke 100k yearly at my desk job, wife doesn't make much, 20k yearly but just finished school and has lots of student loans in her name. M/T/I on our house is 2060 per month and we get 2000 for rent. We're on the northshore of Boston.

My Dad is a handyman at heart. He is planning on retiring in the next 3-4 months but is picking up random jobs to keep him busy. He owns a 2 family outright in an outlying city of Boston probably worth 700k in the current market (3 family across the street sold for 1.1 million 6 months ago). I'm trying to convince him to use the equity to his advantage instead of looking for the smaller jobs.

I want to help however I can and potentially use any of my leverage to help get financing. We obviously both have experience fixing up houses and being landlords. I haven't reached out to a bank yet to understand how they view my wife's and my income. 

Sorry for the long explanation but I wanted to put a lot of facts upfront and see how like minds would use this info to make some money.