Doing the latter would improve my cashflow from that paid for unit from 1000/month (for the paid for house left as is and cashflowing) to about 1250-1400/month of cashflow with the cashout refi used to leverage 3 more properties.I intuitively understand that the refi method will in the end make more money, since I'll have increased my house numbers by 3 (from 3 to 6), adds ~450K to my portfolio in house values (each being roughly 150k) and will have renters paying down the mortgages and also covering taxes and insurance as well.  

You don't even need to tell them you want to buy their house counter-intuitive, I know!  

Around $1.6K in tuitions, app fees, etc.  

It may sound counter-intuitive, but most experiences come from mistakes.

Can anyone recommend a good low cost company to collect rent payments?

It makes intuitive sense that you would do that absent any underwriting or mortgage stuff mucking up your plans.If you have a lease that says they are moving in prior to you moving out, it doesn't make sense that you would voluntarily be homeless, thus making it look like you dummied up a lease and had a buddy make a security deposit just to check a box, which would be mortgage fraud.

You seem like a really intelligent person so I kind of want to give you a little counter intuitive piece of advice.  

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It's not so much that what you're doing is improving inventory (because clearly you are) and yes - intuitively you would think that you would be exempt from sales tax.However, the issue isn't whether it's inventory or not, the issue is whether the end user is charged sales tax.  

I have also been using Intuit Payment Network.