I should add, for any American readers that properties meeting the 1% rule in my area are extremely rare.My question is what can I do, in terms of refinancing or otherwise to decrease my monthly mortgage payments to a level where I can gain a cashflow on this property?

You are lucky you live in Hong Kong.....go to ETrade, Schwab, Citibank, HSBC or one of the American banks there and open account...then they should be able to USD account either there or in US branch.An alternative is someone like Cathay Bank in USA. 

It is called other things in other states but all have it in some form or fashion. 

I hope this makes sense what I am describing here but just think about purchasing a home in the traditional fashion if it's your primary home. 

Stefan, I used American Internet Mortgage aimloan.com to Refi two house I have in Bryan TX last year.

It is adorned with nice cabinets that just need a good old fashion cleaning.

Each platform operates in a somewhat unique fashion .

If you are looking for a general cap rate for different classes within a market you can search for CBRE's North American Cap Rate Survey, but you will need to drill down to the submarket, to get the market sentiment for the area you are looking in.

Some examples of potential future drivers will be: something similar to what Bush did when he signed the American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003, China easing up on Capital Controls (this would be a great sign, but with trade war and China's issues with their own economy I seriously doubt this), IPOs over last 2 years creating much needed wealth for employees (takes 12-24 months for them to be able to exercise stock options), a dot com like bubble in the stock market (I think this is most likely scenario given stock buybacks and QE and I won't be surprised to see stocks doing something absolutely unbelievable over the next 1-5 years similar to 97-end of dot com bubble), or heavy doses of QE and easier access to credit for most people.Working in the Bay Area, we saw first hand how many buyers were foreign and how many paid for houses in cash without even looking at the homes in quite a few cases. 

As a recent college engineering grad who formerly had only been exposed to the typical American life (piling on as much debt as possible in hopes of keeping up with the Joneses), you guys have really got the gears turning in my head and have opened a new way of thinking for me.After recently obtaining a good paying job, I almost made the mistake of buying a new truck and taking on some of the other bad debt that comes with most college grads; instead, I have chosen to put my eggs in the real estate basket.