The "Smart Money" got the lowest rate possible ( floating) and everybody's Grandma got a fixed rate. 

the answer i'm giving is based on the assumption that you do not want to / can not float the negative cashflow any longer. and note: even if appreciation / debt paydown / tax benefits strongly outweighed the negative cashflow, most investors wouldn't want to / couldn't float that. so that said, i say SELL. you have just over a million dollars in equity (minus transactional costs when you sell), and you could do a 1031 exchange into a ~4 million dollar CASHFLOWING property. i invest long distance into value-add multifamily on the west side of chicago. gearing up for my next deal right now. in that price range you could easily get a value-add multifamily with potential to cashflow 15k/mo+++ (up to 40k/mo) once it reaches its full potential. it sounds like you're in markets that are probably strong for appreciation and weak for cashflow (with the long term rental strategy). if cashflow is your goal, 1031 into value-add multifamily in a higher-cashflow area. don't let having to pay commissions during the sale stop you. you're already losing so much annually; you have to stop the bleeding at some point. also note that right now, with the way these two properties are losing money, that might negatively affect your borrowing power when you go to buy the family home. feel free to dm me if i can help in any way!

Sometimes lenders can do what's called a "float down", where they can adjust your rate if rates have dropped enough (enough being the key here).

But it does vary wildly - I work with a larger firm, we have in house professionals who focus 100% of their time on state and local tax / sales and use tax, various aspects of international, employee benefits, trusts, estates, gifts, etc, in addition to various industry focuses - and as a result we charge higher fees because there is a significant amount of very specialized knowledge floating around that is at our clients fingertips as they need it. 

The rate will be lower than hard money or private money, but the catch with these loans is they will require 20% down and the interest rate is a floating rate that typically runs around 1-1.25 over prime.

I imagine most/all local banks that sell REOs will eventually expect the deal to be written up on a state-approved contract, so if you start with this, the agent/bank won't have to rewrite anything on a different contract or ask you to supply a different contract.Technically, only agents should have access to these contracts, but they are generally floating around out there and I bet if you ask another investor or an agent, they can provide you a blank one that you can use to submit your offers.

Maybe some of the owners have high enough W2 salaries and/or other investments they can leverage to float it?

There's many of these floating around but here's my final list based on the STR we launched in January:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-zjlwrDlC2...

HELOC is typically floating rate, but I am seeing about 7.5%.  

You'd like your aftertax return be about that same 25k or whatever the float was.