If you have 3-5 years to force appreciation and pay down principal you can refinance when you're ready to move out with a better LTV and cut out PMI to help cash flow. 

Ask the owner for a copy of his monthly statement which will give you a breakdown of his principal balance and an estimate of the amount owed to the bank.

Keep in mind that your also paying down the principal and building equity Good luck!

I realize the extra cashflow, and I can always make additional principal payments.  

If your timeline is 1-2 years then money market or CD will be your best vehicle to park your money.You don't want to risk your principal in anything riskier with a short timeline.

@Khalia Luff,As an agent, you will list the property for sale through your brokerage, however most brokers/Principal brokers will negotiate either no fee on your end to list it or at most (in my case) I cover the royalty fee (we are a Century 21 affiliate, so we pay 6% on any commission) and that is all.

The challenge was simple, I just needed to figure out how to pay for them.Although I can’t explain it, after reading a book called “think and grow rich”, I applied these principals and well, I started finding money.At the same time, I met a future partner, other local resources and decided to really start pressing for more deals.Over the next several months, I went on what my wife describes as an all-out war path.

Here's an agent-investor marketing issue...I'm a licensed agent and a principal.

The Finance Minister announced steps to curb the influx of foreign capital into the Canadian Real Estate Market  (in which he really meant TO and Vancouver ... down east we are not really suffering from the influx of foreign money ... sure we lost a 50-unit deal a couple of years ago to a Chinese investor, but the property was not worth what s/he paid, so we'll see it back on the market eventually).That said, Ottawa is only removing a loophole which has allowed foreigners to purchase a residence in Canada, claim it as their principal residence and then benefit from the personal residence {captial gains} tax exemption when they sell.  

Please, no proxies or agents; principal only.