Older homes in neighborhoods like Heights and Montrose are full of charm, character, and history, but may need some renovations.When navigating the market, it's important to partner with a local real estate agent, take into account rental market demand and rates, search for value-add chances, and learn about landlord-tenant laws.

Would love any additional info and the chance to check it out! 

Would give her a chance to see the little things that go into being a property manager.2- find work related to REI like a move in/move out cleaning business for tenants or landlords. 

You wouldnt want to do a rate/term refinance as you barely owe any money and the title/escrow fees alone would be cost prohibitive.

I’m curious: are others who house hack buying homes they can just barely afford, or are you sticking closer to the ~30% housing rule and using house hacking income as an added bonus?

As for the open house, many new or less-experienced agents are eager to host them since it gives them exposure and a chance to connect with potential buyer clients.

How can a PMC afford to do more than the bare minimum, when owners only want to pay the bare minimum?

I do agree it will probably work better than a barely-trained VA but it still will have varied results.

What we found was only one other person contracted under $200 per square foot for clients and they also built within the city of columbus. the numbers have a much higher premium the closer you get to downtown. if you can't get the numbers to work my recommendation would be to get closer to downtown. we do build to rent development and single family home development and every line item is broken out. on the triples we have to build exterior staircases etc there are some things you can't really understand unless you build a lot. hope that helps but no one is going to build you for 110 a square foot. the lowest cost homes in our market at cost without a profit barely dip into 140 a square and we are in one of the cheapest construction markets and states in the country. 

But if the new investments will only barely cover the extra cost of borrowing, it might be better to find other ways to access the equity or just wait for a better time.