The issue becomes if I leave, the proerty doesn’t generate positive cashflow.

Replacing locks every time a tenant leaves is a pain.

If you have any advice please leave a post and if you have a reference to lender that meet our needs please message me.

Here’s my strategy and the issue:Current Strategy:Buy a property for $200k with cash.Refinance after 6 months to recover $150k, leaving $50k in the property.Use the recovered $150k to invest in another property, but I need to save up more money to repeat this process.Alternative with Hard Money:Use hard money to buy properties worth up to $800k.Refinance them later to recover my initial investment.For the hard money scenario, obviously I wont be buying them all at once, but rather buy a property worth 350 -> refi -> get HML -> repeat, until my money has ran out.However, hard money can’t be used for cash offers directly, as it’s typically a loan.

It should be cash flow positive once you leave the property, again you must know how to properly run numbers.

This leaves the other options I mentioned -> STR that meet IRS requirements and #3 from the list of material participation above, but it will be tough to prove that no one other individual spends more time than you do since this is probably not true. ...

If one of your prospective tenants has an EV, you can offer to split costs to install it as long as it stays after they leave. - could be a creative solution

Our cleaners charge more per clean, but the pet fee more than covers it and leaves $100+ for capex/profit.

What I don't want to do is piss off the squatter enough to where he doesn't leave OR burns the place to the ground. 

This would cover the $675K needed to pay off the existing HELOC and mortgage, leaving you with about $200K after payoffs and closing costs.However, it's important to consider the cash flow impact.