., $300 for paint and supplies) and add a fair hourly rate for labor.

With rates in constant flux, you might have opportunities to lock in lower ones.

You can often get better rates with a national lender, but the customer service is non-existent, communication probably sucks, they may ask for the same documents multiple times, etc.

Are you getting the property at market rate or below market rate?

Time for the economy to reset and interest rates to come down. 

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).

Had kids in school too.

Given the lack of activity / buyers in the market at this time with rates, would you reccomend holding and renting it until the market is better to sell in? 

If you aren't going to be living in CR full time as you try to execute the deal I do not think it is physically possible for you to obtain a loan from Scotia Bank and not worth your time to try because the rates are so high. 

With current interest rates, and they are at least 1% higher with potentially additional points for non owner occupied property, it is hard to find properties that will allow for positive cash flow after paying the mortgage, if you are looking for money for the down payment from a private lender, those are normally at higher than market and I am not sure it would be possible to pay it off.... please remember you need to take into account that you may not have a tenant for a certain amount of time, a tenant may stop paying rent, or you will have a big ticket item to fix, so I would wait if I were you and save to have enough for the down payment and closing costs and perhaps some money set aside for repairs. you also want to make sure that you have your own emergency fund outside of the money needed for the investment property because life happens ....