At least with my non-commercial mortgages the lender never cared much about the rent amounts (of the place to be financed) but very much cared about my "W-2" income and, to a lesser degree, about the rental income on the existing places.

;-)Becausea) to my knowledge you cannot get a non-commercial (more precisely: Fannie/Freddy) mortgage for an 8-plex andb) F/F will not finance in an LLC.You will need to find  a lender who does not (need to) adhere to F/F rules (assuming this is what you mean by "conventional") and they will then, typically, require you to have the property/title in an LLC.Your second question: a commercial lender will look at DSCR and typically wants to see at least 1.2%.

These non commercial property values are only determained by comparitive sales for that reason.

In particular the rate is guaranteed for a few years with the longer guarantee you desire (all being fairly short compared to non-commercial loans) the worse the other terms of the loan. 

I have not experienced this on a non-commercial residential (i.e. 1 to 4 unit) refinance. 

Your best bet is to either 1) pursue a commercial loan (you should be able to find a commercial mortgage broker who loans on non-commercial real estate) or 2) find a co-signer with the proper W2 income.

If it is just a bit outdated, the returns from a rehab may not justify the effort.As other posts have indicated, for non-commercial residential (<5 units) the value of the rents or the NOI should not be a primary criteria in setting the value. 

I have a question about multifamily properties below 5 units.  Is the property assessment for cash out refinance looked at from a residential perspective or as a true multifamily perspective?  The level in equity is v...

The last purchase, as well as the rate quote I received last week, were at 75% LTV with no DCR requirements (non-commercial residential).As for the $50M in real estate or the $100k/month of profit they are both great goals and it is my belief they can be achieved in San Diego RE. 

Non-commercial is in a weird space, where appraisers use all 3 methods, comp, rents, replacement, and then pull a number out of their butts.