You will not get SFR loans (LOC, Refi) unless you are resident.It's a rental (aka business) property and you will either take options noted above or need a commercial loan (just like MFU 5+ properties).The loan rate contributes very little to the mortgage payments (run different rates thru a payment calculator), so don't go crazy on the rate.However, all commercial loans are ARMs and get reevaluated periodically, and that may be a deal breaker. 

Check out E Mon sub meters for circuits or sub panels.  

Get with the Executor, they will need to get the probate court to approve distributions of the Will and arrange a stay of the notice of demand if one has been made, perhaps with the circuit court.

Since buying the houses, I've had a rash of bad luck...A) 2 - 20 yard dumpsters filled and emptied of old tenants trashB) Electrical fuse boxes and lines stolen from one home for the copper - $7500 to replace 5 breaker panels, meter units, shut off switches, etcC) Copper plumbing in second house stolen, replaced with PexD) Multiple frozen / busted water lines throughout the houses, was never "winterized"E) And though the houses have been vacant for over 2 years, Indianapolis dept of health has found someone to pick on, giving me multiple fines for unsafe housing (missing gutter downspouts, cracked porch near steps, and get this...the plywood that was used to board up the windows was not painted the same color as the house!)

I have decent hard money (decent interest, no points) so the lender costs wouldn't be a deal breaker.

I have had more than one run freezers, welders, and you name it off these circuits, either for convenience or outright theft!

You need a breaker or saw and other tools for this.

This wasn't an issue for 8 months then the lack of a Z became a deal breaker.

I've recently found a property that will more than likely be going into auction next month that is worth over $100,000+ Lake Drive Virginia Beach, Virginia 23464 (Tax Map ID No. 146643179800) Default having been made in the terms of a certain Deed of Trust dated March 29, 2002, in the original principal amount of $38,000.00 and recorded in the Clerk's Office of the Circuit Court of the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia in Deed Book 4667, page 822, the undersigned Substitute Trustees, will sell at public auction on April 27, 2009, at 8:30 a.m., in front of the building housing the Virginia Beach Circuit Court, facing Nimmo Parkway (Building 10), Virginia Beach Judicial Center, 2425 Nimmo Parkway, Virginia Beach, VA, the property designated as Lot 15, Block A, on the plat entitled "Plat of Chatham Hall, Phase 6, Part B", recorded in the aforesaid Clerk's Office in Map Book 126 at page 46.

All had good experiences and I'm sure, from what I knew at the time that they would have been hosed by the insurance companies if they had not gone that route.That said, I'm a big believer in hearing what the other side (insurnance company) has to say before I call in my "big guns" (private adjuster, attorney, leg breaker in order of importance).