In our introductory letter we assured them we would not be raising the rent at that time.

And you had some assurance you would work that job for 30 or 40 years.

This may seem like a trivial, or academic nitpick, but I can assure you this is of prime importance to how I structure my database.

I can assure you, that if you skip the fundamentals, you'll be lost in trying to adapt strategies to real situations and you'll be chasing your tail for sometime before the big picture comes into focus.

I can assure you they are motivated. 

They are asking you to go under contract on the next property without even having any assurance that they will do a cash out refi.  

This cost, which I didn't do, helped drive my decision to sell my house as is and move elsewhere for retirement.I also learned from the plumber the gas water heater I had installed in the 1990s by another plumber (licensed) was done incorrectly (the heater was improperly vented and the seismic strapping was not in compliance with the codes, even though I got an assurance in writing at the time the work was done properly).

I’m going to keep searching and modify my approach a bit to be as sure as I can that I’m properly conveying my intentions and also asking for the right type of loan product.

There liquidity concerns with many of them, but I can assure you Fannie Mae is still allowing for cash out refinances. 

I can assure you that these guys did not make the decision based on emotion.