Unfortunately, I do own investment properties abroad that are still financed, so any lender that has experience with this would be much appreciated, the lack of experience in that regard has been a painful, and long underwriting process at first when I bought and then again when I refinanced my home a few years ago...

The pain is removing all HVAC, plumbing & electrical so you can sister or replace a beam or joist and then put them all back in.

Those landlords sometimes feels the pain managing property outside the state.  

@Neal Daftary-I think self-managing a duplex from 1.5 hours away is going to be a huge pain.

Which ones are the most painful?

With fees and points and so on, their money cost me 16%, and it was a total pain to refinance to a 5% conventional mortgage.If you are going to do a deal which involves buying a house for $50k less than market price, then paying Eastside $10k to expedite the closing is totally worth it.Eastside funding are good people, and they provide excellent service. 

But with the sharp decline in mortgage rates since May, the moribund housing market is showing signs of life.Confidence rising; competition falling.

*Listen for pain points.- Timeline.

Is the Only Way to Negotiate a Lower Price with Builders is to have a pain in the butt inspector find a laundry list of problems and meaningless in the grand scheme defects to compel them to cut their numbers to move to acceptance and closing?

I know it is painful when you have bern decreasing the rent already.