Your contract is evidenced by the spreadsheet, payments, and likely other communication about the work.

Then you will have a principal and interest payment of around $13,450.00 plus Taxes and insurance so add in another $2800 for $16,250.00 a month. 

Your minimum down payment amount for a 2-4 unit will be about the same as an often required 20-25% down payment on a co-op.

That way we could start renting without needing a new down payment and all of the closing costs.

Now the biggest impactor is often the least spoken on which is energy storage.

Believing there is less risk because you are investing a small amount of money (in this case using only a 5% down payment) is the second biggest mistake you are making behind purchasing this asset property in the first place. 

The didn't live within their means, accrued a lot of debt, and it eventually resulted in them not paying rent and being evicted.Consolidating debt reduces their payments so they have more money available, but it doesn't automatically teach them to live within their means.

so i had zero debt or interest payments on it while it was being fixed up. 

As lenders, well issue a prequal/preapproval letter if we've analyzed your income, assets (bank and brokerage statements to establish that you have the liquidity to afford the down payment, closing costs, and reserves), review credit of the guarantors, review the relevant experience to ensure that we're not throwing our money away on newbies that are wandering around in the dark, and have put together a reasonable plan of attack for the project.

Take the larger down payment and put it into something bigger, which lowers your %equity in the property but still keeps the $equity and the cash flow is now going into the larger property.