FICO is a factor in both scenarios.

The main one is running your business well.In my experience better than 80% of lawsuits are settled out of court. 

I don't buy from assignors for two main reasons...liability and fictitious numbers. 

That HE loan would make you cash flow negative on the first property, especially considering you are not even factoring in any repairs, maintenance, vacancy or management.

When rented, we lock all interior bedroom doors aside from the bedroom we are renting by the room and sync the calendar with the main house's calendar.

Yes, mainly looking in the $30k-$100k range (I know anything under $65k is a bigger project).

There are certain factors that need to be met like LTV. 

There are a lot of other issues, but for you as the owner, the main one is usually do you have to have the current tenants out to build (no income) on to the existing property or are you going to do a knockdown new build?

We lived in Texas for 13 years and just moved up to Maine in June of this year.

There are a lot of factors that go into the decision.