Last piece of advice is to surround yourself with quality service providers (real estate brokers, lenders, accountants, attorneys, PM's, Contractors, Insurance Brokers)., They will be instrumental to your business. 

I had a meeting with a lender about getting a second home loan.

Per lender's requirement, the title is held by individuals as "tenants in common" rather than LLC.

I've closed three refinances in the last two three weeks at three different lenders.  7.3%, 7.8%, 7.75%.Leverages varied a little, so did credit.

Is it like the following:a)  Make an offer on a 5-unit that the Seller acceptsb)  Do my inspections, come up with gameplanc)  Present the lender with final gameplan, once approved then proceed to closing & get the keysd)  Have XX days to convert to a 4plex?

Andrew is my preferred lender and fellow investor I used for my DSCR (and traditional loans) loan for rental properties.

Make sure to provide clear disclosures to the seller about the risks involved, especially regarding the existing mortgage staying in their name.Insurance Considerations – You’ll need to work with an insurance agent who understands sub-to deals, as the lender might require a policy that keeps the seller as the named insured.Due-On-Sale Clause – While banks rarely call loans due, it’s still a possibility.

Probably approaching $100k in total.My options seem to be sell and pay an additional ~70k out of pocket to the lender (underwater amount) or make the repairs and hope the problem is corrected once and for all.

Combination of own capital, hard/private money lenders, partnerships and raising outside capital.How do you add value to these deals?

I've seen some people house hack a single family home by renting out the rooms, but keep in mind that traditional lenders would not be able to use the income from renting out the rooms (known as boarder income) towards additional income on the application.