Also, the term "house hacking" is generally used for your owner occupied home (renting out rooms in your primary home) and that income cannot be used to help you qualify (it is considered boarder income). 

IE  someone sold there house in Minneapolis to move to LA but the house they are in contract to buy just got destroyed ?

So, they could potentially buy another house later on.

Hey Natasha, I am the owner of DealMachine and I have 19 properties in Indy.

I agree with John, we are seeing renovation costs of $150k- $200k for a basement unit and $250k + for a coach house. 

Additionally, while rates aren't historically bad right now, they are higher than 4-5 years ago, and they will be even higher for you as an investor than they were as an owner occupant, which is what you were when you bought originally.I get that you are anxious to add to your portfolio, but that could be achieved without touching your first golden goose.Sometimes on BP, the push is to leverage every last spare penny, but that can be a risky game as the markets shift. 

It currently has a renewed leased tenant for a year @$1400 a month (the owner of the property rented it out to workers at an under-market rate but could easily get $1500-1700).

Cash out refi only if the rental income significantly exceeds the monthly payment and you want liquidity to invest elsewhere.2.You can maybe do a HELOC if you want a smaller loan that doesn’t involve refinancing the entire house.3.

We're still waiting for the owners bank to let us know if they'll actually help us or not.

Borrowing against your paid off house without an income puts way too much pressure on the success of whatever deal/project you decide to pursue.