Or, if money down is not an issue but income verification is, you can go with a debt service coverage ration (DSCR) loan which only looks at the property's cash flow ability and not at your personal income. 

You can justify a personal decision with math, but it doesn't work in reverse, that's just a rationalization,...and that's the most expensive word in the REI vocabulary. 

If you don't have a stable income and reserves, then maybe your fear is rational after all.

The banking system has lost all rational thinking and incentive to be responsible.

A case that in a rational person's mind shouldn’t have been a case due to its absurdity.

After 2 years the MI is eligible to be removed if the loan to equity ration is at or below 78%.

People in desperate situations do not think rationally, nor do they care about what is morally or ethically right or wrong.  

Back then, however, once you owned the home and had a lease in place, you could get financing on it fairly easily, especially if you agreed to use the loan to pay off the HELOC balance at closing -- it was before the boom, so not the have-a-pulse-get-a-loan days, but rational, unlike today where even with decades of great credit, equity, and reserves, they still find weird ways to deny you after you pay the appraisal and application fees.  

Respond promptly, professionally, and be rational.

The problem I see, is when the math is selectively used (not saying you are) to rationalize their frame of mind.