The nice thing about Cozy is the credit/background check is really easy and the tenant pays for it with their own credit card.

Set up similar to a credit card when you can make "advances" against the line of credit you establish when you set up the HELOC. 

Think of it like closing out a credit card. 

I assume you have a business credit card along with it, for business related expenses. 

be mindful in a C- / D neighborhood, that fancy gadgets and gizmos may draw the attention of the neighborhood miscreants because they know when a board-up is being worked on that new items are being added inside...sounds like a great security system is needed and make a friend with a nosey neighbor, leave your card with contact info on it to keep you in the know of potential shady goings-on with the property.  

You could even ask them for several business cards and tell them you will distribute them to potential buyers. 

Our board’s mandate a new census card (sheet with current info of residents (tenant or owner)) be submitted each year and whenever there is a change.

The mortgage guys really hurting are the ones that built their practice on the low hanging fruit house of cards of artificially low rates, which is rate and term refinance business from a call center cubicle thingie.

Even if the lender is required to "possess" (Not the same as "produce") the original note, don't count on them losing it as a "Get a home for free" card.

Marvin There are so many things to consider, the way I will go about it will be by acquiring a debt weapon, home equity line of credit maybe for 20,000 and use that to pay down your principal there are some good youtube videos that will explain how to pay down your mortgage faster and save thousands of dollars in interest, but you need to have at least $500 of cash flow each month for that to work or use that to pay of a car payment faster anything that will increase your debt to income ratio so you can start saving more money each month cut down your monthly bills pay off all credit cards anyway you can i will try to get out of any car payments sell the cars buy a use one before selling the house, rent a room is a big house. obviously like i said lots of things to think about do you have kids so maybe a roommate wont work and your finances with out looking at them is hard to plan but I will try to make that house the investment get created if you have good credit that’s exactly how i started i hustle pay down my principal using the HELOC technique and when my equity become more because of lowering the principal I call my lender and increase my HELOC amount to the point that i was able to buy a house cash using the HELOC my HELOC became my checking account and i was paycheck parking all my income in the heloc is hard to explain what i did in a text but i hope this help you in getting created and into looking at more information before you sell or selling is the best way to go about it.