In this case, your monthly payment with 20% down will have a good MARKET rate if your DTI works with a much lower month payment and no mortgage insurance(MI).

Getting this cleaned up now would push my credit score over 800+ and eliminate nearly $3k per month in revolving debt payments and bring me quite a bit of peace.

If you do have to move because of a job, you would be safest (in my opinion, i am not giving legal advice or financial advice), i would sell that property to ensure that you did not just purchase with the goal of moving out early and taking advantage of lower rates and lower down payments for purchasing your home as a primary residence. 

say you find a solid property in a low cost market for $200K and you buy it.between down payment, closing costs, rent ready / spruce up costs, and lease-up costs, you're probably going to need at least 50-65K in cash. 

., while the average home price is $635,000 (Source) (at a 7% interest rate, 10% down payment, 30-year mortgage that would be $3,802 a month).

Here is the Collin Hays method of buying the property at what you want to pay:Don’t ask the seller what their best offer is.

Perhaps we "buy" the house from them for the $328K balance to satisfy the lender and don't need a large down payment and then have a separate contract with them to pay $x per month until we've paid the full $172K amount.

NONE of the money raised from the auction of a 2nd goes toward the payment of the 1st (that is why they call it "subject to the first")4.

Yes, the BRRRR method can work with multifamily properties, and many investors have done it successfully.

I guess my question is this: is the very low cash flow (due to my low down-payment and high interest) going to improve?