If you were able to increase the value of the property significantly after the rehab, then you could bring the deal to a community bank  to refinance and take the hard money lender out.You keep all the equity and don’t have to file a partnership return for your annual tax return, which can be costly.  

It's just a matter of knowing where to go....oh and this is possible with 0% origination fees and without increasing the rate...not a bait and switch, i have a different compensation model. 

If have investment property, we are looking for relatively updated units (we are ok doing some work ourselves), class C+/B tenants, with rents either close to market rate or that can be increased.

@Josue RamosTo invest in Texas markets, consider Dallas, Austin, and Houston, which have seen strong population growth and appreciation.

You know this and the reason I am saying that I am considering in getting a real state license is the connections, the access to listing off market and possibility of earning commission that I can use to increase my portfolio.I think that being an investor agent will help me build a reputation and that can be good or bad.

Look at SCI, we had a lot rent increase in Nov. 2017, SCI came in an purchased it in Dec. 2017 and increased the rent again.

When getting new tenants I've found the increase to be much more. 

.- Working a W2 as a firefighter, posting and consuming content- Leaving my W2 to dive deep into real estate investing and working as an agent... and still watching/posting content all while business was ok - Deleting social media apps (one have one on my phone that I use 10 minutes or less a day), diving deep into building my business and skills which have drastically increased due to pure focus and increasing my business significantly- moral of the story... focus on the things you need to do in business (dollar productive activities) and life experiences while reducing consumption will increase your success  

Quote from @Jokari Trueheart: HI, almost 11 months ago I purchased 3 duplexes and I borrowed the funds from my personal residence which I took out a equity agreement for the down payment on the investment property, great idea at the time because I have 10 years to pay it off and theres no payment requirement, but , I learned more about the consequence that it takes a large chunk of my equity the longer I take to pay it back, so my goal was to refi cash out the investment property to pay it back but I don't think theres enough equity yet to pull the full $106k needed, I only borrowed $88k but with the equity percentage for one year i'm paying about $18k in equity on top of the amount I borrowed if I pay it off in year one, so I need this paid off ASAP before it increases more.

The big pros are the strong job market (lots of major employers), good population growth, and still-reasonable entry prices.