Prior to the 3-day workshop (3 weeks before) they gave us access to the portal on their site where we could prepare and learn a little bit about what we were going to be learning in person, also questions to get to know us better and our goals.

This change improves privacy and minimizes unauthorized access, but it's essential to consider local building codes and regulations, as many jurisdictions require safe egress routes for basement units in case of emergencies.

I’m not terribly concerned about the house since the layout would make it easy to survey & subdivide to make it two parcels.

Most folks who come to me to refi end up having to bring cash to close even though the new value has increases substantially, they cannot access 20-25% of that equity due to the cash out limits being 75-80LTV. 

@Marizel AshbyBelow are the top things I will recommend you focus on if you don't have at least $30,000 in your bank account or you don't have access to that kind of cash from other sources:1.

Plenty of people do it, but not 100% easy street.Good luck and best wishes.

No plowing thus no access?

Make sure it is somewhere easily accessible that doesn’t require any tools to turn off.  

Or is is pretty easy to transfer this years data into Baselane to get started at any point in the year?

It does seem though that one of their value add services is an easy sale into the flock.