A recent personal example is of a commercial property I bought for $180K, made some improvements, raised rents and now have around $80K in equity.  

The reason the bank would grant this loan at this time is because of the 90k in equity the property has in addition to having a year or 2 of continous rent.Help me understand if/where i got anything wrong or if there are other options available at any point in this process. 

My dad owns a house worth about 200k with about 100k in equity.

Depending on repairs this could potentially have over $100k in equity.

Currently our home has 150k-180k in equity (depending on an additional legal addition of property to the backyard) and im not yet sure as to what method to pursue.I dont intend to dive completely into real estate investing as my sole career but do wish to acquire enough passive income to work as little as possible while attending graduate school a year from now.

I believe I have at least 80 thousand in equity, do not want to sell the home but want to buy a rental property.

I have 2 houses, and a total of approximately $120.000 in Equity.

Let's call it $4K in cash flow.If it appreciates 5%, you are looking at $15K in equity over that same time frame.You'll also probably pay your note down $3-4K. 

This gives us about $125,000 in equity (if we sell) which is where my question lies.

. $1.5m in equity in 6 years which is what I estimate that I will need to generate returns necessary to replace my current income.