If things work out, we'd like to have at least 1 additional property before the end of the year and have 8 in 8 years.

You don’t get to just expense the additional real expenses.

But this comes with pockets of C/D neighborhoods, and higher potential for headaches;  in addition, appreciation in these zips has probably maxed out for a while.

For a solo team we have a plan for $147/mo that includes onboarding to connect your tools at sign up and anytime throughout your membership at no additional cost, and screen share training with our team.

Some carriers won't allow insured to be a trust, so in that case do it in your company name with trust as additional insured.

The 2-3% points in extra cost are worth it if you plan on using as I described above because the use would be for a few  months at most and due to that short term use you can survive a rate adjustment up.But, if you have no plan to payoff the debt like when using for a down payment on a long term hold why pay the extra cost for flexibility and have the additional risk of the adjustable rate with the amortization looming when you can get a fixed rate second mortgage. 

Additionally, their marketing was very compelling.

I had one overall criteria and that was could I create additional value and could it pencil. 

We look at lenders (so long as they lend in the asset class you are considering) as an additional line of due diligence (they deeply care about their money and they are likely more sophisticated than you are).

Both properties have a substantial amount of equity that’s essentially sitting idle.Would it be a good idea to tap into this equity (through a HELOC, cash-out refinance, etc.) to fund future fix-and-flip projects or purchase additional rental properties?