Although the plumber said after looking at report pictures, he thinks it is terra cotta.

Leasing at $3k/month covers your current mortgage comfortably, so refinancing could relieve the pressure of the balloon payment.

I've heard Propstream might be worth looking into too.3) I think when you're starting out, you should go ahead and take the pictures. 

It looks like it's pending now, but from the pictures it looks pretty good for 75k. 

Keeping this as a rental would not cover the mortgage (we'd have to pay ~1500 a month including utilities) and we can afford the extra payment, but is it worth it when looking at appreciation?

While AirDNA provides useful data about pricing and potential returns, it's important to remember that data alone doesn't always give the full picture.

For example, does it cover which areas are common areas versus private ones?

One was making an extra $600/month while covering all of his household expenses with just 3 PadMates. 

One note is that if the property was helping cover my costs of living while I house hacked it I wouldn’t worry about negative cash flow while I resided there.

So make sure you can cover both loans for awhile.