I think there is a weird balance here, among professionals, where people may not want to bad mouth fellow professionals, particularly from the same areas, which can create a skewed picture. 

We syndicated 75%, plus costs of the purchase price and financed the balance with a traditional loan.We shopped around for weeks to find the perfect loan with the best rates and terms.

If you've owned for at least that, you're good.If you do a rate/term refinance, where just the hard money balance is paid off, rates will be much better.

I would look for a bunch of Sub To Deals with 2-3% interest rates ...... then rent out for cash flow and huge equity build up when rates are really low (check out amortization schedules and compare 2-3% vs 6-7% with the same balance and length of time - check out the principal portion each month - the lower the rate the higher amount goes to principal PLUS better cash flow).

My idea to buy a home is to get an 80% LTV 1st mortgage from a bank, take over that mortgage and give the seller a second mortgage for 50% of the 1st mortgage balance because I need some cash to cover the payments, which the amount of cash would be more than the remaining equity in the home.

If you dont sort out your global cashflow, this may only prolong the inevitable at the expense of your equity.Option 2 would be leave CA and shrink your balance sheet by selling the properties and paying off the CC debt.

It all depends where your current balance stands.  

You don't have to balance them against each other.

Given your limited cash and high DTI, refinancing after boosting rents might balance risk and reward best.

You'd need to come up with the seller's equity (the difference between the loan balance and the sales price).