Our prospective numbers point to increasing profits as the deal ages with an eventual infinite ROI once the initial investment is paid off.

They should be found early on by talking to other investors or your investor friendly Realtor.It is through effective property management that your money is made besides buying well initially.

The perceived value may be more, because you know an STR was run there and making money, but a lender wont value it more.While I agree a lender probably won’t value it more, an investor interested in running it as a STR will pay more.  

I LOVED getting a loan through DR Horton on a DR Horton build, that I had to pay for a DR Horton appraisal.

Are you looking to pay off the hard money loan, fund another investment, or cover property improvements?

You also only pay interest on the amount you use.

But, the self-sufficiency test for FHA loans can be really difficult in SF, meaning that the market rent from units you will not occupy must be sufficient to pay for the mortgage payment. 

But this was an awesome opportunity for me because this is my first living situation where I will be on my own (and getting used to paying a rent/mortgage) but this will put my overall mortgage on a 400k house at roughly $2000 a month for the first year!

Not a ton of value-add opportunity, more of a core+ investment in a very small market I'm familiar with - my initial analysis is yielding a 14% IRR & 1.28 EM, so I'm not sure of the attractiveness to investors.

Less licensees paying into the pot means everyone's costs go up.