Not leveraging your portfolio, either via a refinance or more indirectly in an equity raise, is a poor financial decision, from a tax standpoint as well as a growth standpoint.The only reason it doesn’t make sense is if your investment property is fundamentally a loser to begin with, or if you do not have financial intelligence and think it’s a good idea to pay off your loans 100%.

You can't show a phone call to a lawyer to aid in intelligent decision making. 

Back then, unscrupulous lenders stimulated housing demand artificially by making lending unrealistically over-available leading to rise in home prices well beyond their actual value. 

(C) The would-be seller is a very patient, intelligent, and kind person.

Someone may be trying to artificially inflate the rating for this business."

@Eli Sunderland,Here's what you need to remember about the crash and the housing market before and after it ...Leading up to the crash, virtually unlimited access to lending created an artificially high demand which drove prices skyward, even in the face of the highly speculative development and home building.In the crash, some 80% of home builders went under.

However, to be successful one needs a much greater degree of knowledge, experience and intelligence.  

I honestly have no idea how to intelligently work these.

You could expand it as you mentioned either sooner or later, and if a developer sees potential then there is likely profit to be made in addition to practicality by expanding the footprint if done intelligently and cost effectively.4)You keep the house as a rental and purchase your next larger home.

It is extremely important that you know the basics of real estate as agents learn for their examinations with the exception of state real estate commission related materials.70%, I'm sure after being here for years on this site, of the questions asked on BP have the answer in the basics of a formal education in RE.Can you, as a newbie (or more most here with years in doing what they do) imagine being able to give an intelligent answer to 70% of all the questions asked on this site after receiving about 2 weeks of training?