I hope we can potentially do future business together!

If you don't need the extra money at closing and just want to pay off your current loan in hopes of a better rate, you could consider a rate term refi instead. 

i am adjusting my strategy and going to try to keep expanding my funnel.I don't think @Russell Brazil is saying to go out and blindly buy a terrible deal... just that no, the ship hasn't sailed on Boston (as I don't think it has either) and RE remains a good investment.happy to continue to dialogue... hope this helps

I’d love to hear about your goals and what you’re hoping to achieve here.

Hopefully that upfront diligence plus a healthy contingency budget would suffice to keep me out of that scenario, otherwise I would foresee a guaranteed loss, or underperformance at the very least.

I prefer to stay further from the coast and hopefully further from major storm/flooding events (potentially lower insurance costs).  

Then progress to permits and then building.You could also just do it and hope the city doesn't notice, which they probably won't.Your challenge will be getting Certificates of Compliance on the units!

You can hear real-world examples of how others have built their investment portfolio and (hopefully) learn to avoid their mistakes.4.

I hope this helps you land on goals, then you can dive deeper into where.

Hope that helps!