Also, this is a long play, I see it as I am building up houses with cash flow, but also a good chunk of equity/appreciation should I need to sell off and use the cash for something else sometime in the future.

It is a complicated situation and not ideal but just exploring options.  

I know some investors in their 70's that played small ball when they could have sold an traded up.

This would be more of a cash flow play and forced appreciation over time.  

I'd just weigh your expected returns in the market vs your mortgage interest rate.I've actually been tapping the HELOC equity to re-invest into the market which is an aggressive play but if I can beat the interest rate (3.75%), I'll be turning a profit by doing so.

I'd buy my house again today in a heartbeat for our total refi amount, so I guess I did an appreciation-refi-play on my house to pay for a divorce and am at about 20% equity when the dust settles with no revolving debt. 

I personally wouldn't necessarily recommend this avenue, and I'd imagine it would still be challenging to find a solar contractor willing and able to "get creative", but I have seen this play out before. 

:-/Ideally, I'd love to use the county public record as the initial basis, as that would be the highest number, resulting in the highest depreciation deduction.What's the correct thing to do here?

Everything is in good condition, they just don't want to be landlords anymore and would like the best price they can get for their house, ideally without having to put it on the market from out of state.After recently reading @Brandon Turner's "Investing With No/Low Money Down," I got the idea for a lease option, and would very much appreciate any feedback, insight and thoughts!

I think there is a price break somewhere that divides the tenant pools; oddly enough, try raising the rent just a bit to pull it over a line (for instance, from $795 to $825) to see if that changes the nature of interested renters.And the phone number isn't my personal cell #, it's a Google voice number that will play a message, accept texts, and forward all texts and calls to my email.