Since I was a strait A and B student that came from a lower class family, I got all of my college expenses paid for.

refinance can be re-structuring the loan. it can be lower rate, longer term, lower term, or lower payment which depend on what you want.

Garage conversion is common there ( however, in certain city, it does lower property value) .  

I looked at your report after my post, unless you are paying full purchase price in cash you would lower your down payment. so if you put 20% down, that would be 36,000. that will change your COC amount to a lot better number, if you paid full price as you show it is saying you would make a return of little over 2% on the money you put in.

@Paul DeSilva why would pulling equity to reinvest lower your net worth?

In multifamily value add type deals, you usually have a lower cash on cash in the first few years, and then most of the money is received on the sale after you have added all of the value and executed the full business plan.

Year-to-date, the median price rose 6.4 percent to $389,500 while sales edged 0.6 percent lower with 40,035 transactions."

I have room to reduce the cash out and lower the build cost slightly I will rerun the numbers to see. 

The HOA is 127.50 a month (lower than most HOA's in this area) and it covers Exterior Mnt of Unit; Roof Repair; Roof Replacement; Blanket Ins Policy; Garbage Collection; Common Area Maint; Street Maint.

The trade off for that is twofold; a static interest rate for the next thirty years, vs a slightly lower, but variable interest rate on a HELOC that could be 15% in five years, which would likely bankrupt most investors.