Single-family homes offer higher cash flow, lower maintenance, and potential equity growth, but may have less privacy and slower unit growth.Good luck!

In-person interactions are great for building trust with potential investors.Real Estate Platforms:BiggerPockets: A robust platform for connecting with private lenders and investors.Fund That Flip, PeerStreet, Groundfloor: Online platforms connecting investors with real estate projects.Social Media Groups: Facebook and LinkedIn groups dedicated to real estate investing often have private investors or lenders looking to connect.Personal Network: Often overlooked, but friends, family, and colleagues may know individuals interested in investing.Private Money Brokers: If you're working on wholesaling deals, you may find brokers who have established relationships with private money lenders.Real Estate Agents: Some agents have connections with private investors, especially those focused on investment properties.For your 50% LTV, it's good to approach investors who may be interested in lower-risk, high-equity deals.

Alternatively, your in-laws could partially gift the property by using the annual gift tax exclusion ($34K per couple annually), lowering the sale price and their taxable gain.

As another poster mentioned rates are lower than they've been in the previous 18+ months but unless some very surprising economic data comes out between now and when you did your refi it seems unlikely that rates are going up in the short term and there is at least a decent chance that rates drop a little more before then. 

Typically, the adjustments I see on appraisals for basements are more flat rate adjustments. 10k is usually the number I've seen.What stinks is that there are a couple of model types that have below grade space where the builder, I'm sure, was trying to lower the taxes by having it below grade so the county wouldn't count that space in the assessment.

For example, California has an $800 minimum franchise tax, while other states have lower fees or no franchise tax at all.

As you suggest lowering down payment to buy more properties is one way, although the downside is greater risk in event of down cycle and more time to manage required.  

Congrats on your success in acquiring the duplex that now will yield 6.5% cap at current lower rental rates. 94115 is a great zip code to be in.

Negotiating a lower price to account for these issues could be an option, but if they’re not flexible, it may be best to explore other opportunities.Happy to connect if you’d like to discuss further!

And, even then, hitting your rate target would still be extremely challenging unless you were paying points up front, in which case it would probably make more sense to just try to put in a bigger down payment (or pay down the balance if refi) instead and get better terms naturally offered at the lower LTV.