You'll have to pay rent regardless, so you need to consider that you would already have that expense, along with the fact that you'll get the benefits of principal paydown and asset appreciation (especially by leveraging).Acquire the asset and perhaps focus on something you can add value to, then you'll have a 100-200K equity chunk to play with in a few years when the market accelerates again.

I work with a lot of smaller syndications/investment groups and have seen some where the principals try to take a 'hands-off' approach and let the machine run.

The idea here is to pay off the principal of the $700,000 over the four period then when I get a loan for the remainder $550,000 it would be more affordable.

DSCR is calculated by using the monthly market rent or lease (up to 120%) and dividing it by the Principal, Interest, Taxes and Insurance Payment. 2.

If you can use OPM on the renovation at say 7% with plan to pay the principal down in less than a year, then I would invest your personal funds elsewhere into another deal or do something with your current STR to help it stand out.From my experience, HELOCs scare me but I do know if done the right way they can be very effective.I'd be happy to chat more on your Smokies STR on how to help make it stand out.

This is how you comply with interest tracing.When you sell that property, you receive the loan principal back.

All-in, I am about $600 negative monthly cash-flow, and the principal balance paydown portion of the mortgage is about $750 per month. 

With the deal structure this was you get:$ in stocks - providing--Div, Appreciation, Cap Gains leveraged to gain House with Equity capture, Cash flow (think house hack), principal pay down, appreciation, depreciation and write-offs and whatever the value of learning to earn is....  

If your basis is $100,000 and your sales price is $250,000 then $150,000 / $250,000(60%) of each principal payment will be considered gain.

There will be more work and headaches but the property will be more advantageous in regards to deprecation, principal pay down, appreciation over the next 10 years.