I purchased the house for 168K, with a few improvements and upgrades, I invested about 6K more for a total of 174K invested. 

But I treat the home as my own, upgrade and fix it up to rent it.

The trouble is, they'll only accept cash, but we only have enough for 30% down, which would annihilate our budget for the cosmetic upgrades and purchasing appliances - which are missing.

I have not broken the lease in any way.

This way you don't get nickle and dimed by the contractor and bleed dry of your working capital before a single shovel has broken ground. 

Here is a list of items that a hard money lender would like to see:Project Financial Analysis - Breakdown of your financial analysis for the project showing your ARV, Repair Costs, Buying Costs, Holding Costs, Selling Costs, Financing Costs & Projected ProfitRepair Estimate - Summary of Repairs broken down by CategoryProject Scope of Work - Detailed breakdown of all Estimated RepairsComparable Sales Data - Comparable sales analysis of at least 3 similar, recently sold compsProperty Photos - Photos of the existing property conditionYour Resume - Your resume of past experiences, & action plan for the projectI have uploaded a sample Investment Presentation in my fileplace as an example:https://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/drobertson/file/sample-rehab-investment-presentation-for-lender

What I'm really curious about his hard money/private lending in the valley, and good contractors for flipping/upgrading. 

You'll need to change the use from residential to hotel, which will require a lengthy process that includes physical upgrades and changes to the building.Basically the City wants the property to conform to safety standards for that particular commercial use.

With no income...just cost.How many months would it take to recover $60k...which is what you need to do before you show any profit...and before you mention appreciation, you get the same appreciation whether you pay this way or the minimum.At $18k/y cf (after payoff), it will take you over 3 additional years before you start making a profit...that's actually close to 8 years from when you start the early payoff.B - If you put 20% down (about $24k), that was cash, and you had positive cf (on average) for the full term (let's say 20 more years), the cost of this property to you was $24k.If you had $500 positive CF without doing this early payoff, or $6k/year, you would have broken even at the end of year 4...and you would be profiting.Let the tenant buy the house for you. 

If your ad says "newly upgraded", or "new appliances", then you better have a photo of the completed work, and not the work in progress.