Maybe I can throw some ideas your way for improvement.

Funny enough things have dramatically improved over the last couple days.

I am trying to figure out the best  improvements to make to drive up the appraisal.  

Secured by the home itself, a HELOC offers a way to use the equity stored in the home at a lower interest rate than many other types of loans.HELOCs can be used for everything from home improvement projects to large purchases, educational expenses, or even debt consolidation/refinancing.

Building would be worth upwards of 20mill + 2. the property i own that is in the middle and the best lot for the project used to have a house on it, but we demolished that and it is only land value now.. practically free and clear.. banks i've spoken with will not loan me money on the land. 3. the costs to get the plans can't cost too much considering the value of the project... not trying to update anything, but want to tear down and either build or sell. 4. plans and permits could take 3-6mo ?

Data for dollars = properties where the improvement value is a low % of the overall tax assessment (meaning the house is probably old/unrenovated), low assessed value in area with lots of knock downs, recently transferred into name of a trustee...Overall response rate for the whole 371 was 6.7% (response = anyone who called sometime in the mail campaign). 64% of those responses were to the 1st mailing, 28% to the second mail, 4% to the 3rd, 4% to the 4th. 

Very minor TLC needs to be done from the looks of it, but I do think that some improvements to the floor plan need to be done initially (I am in a house hacking situation where I need 2 bathrooms, and the house only has 1).

I'm currently under contract on a smaller, 5-unit commercial office/retail property. 4 of the 5 leases expire in April/May of this year, and one of the contingencies of the sale closing is that 3 of those 4 soon-expiring leases renew for at least one year (I have full negotiating power over those leases).All of those tenants have showed no intention to vacate, and are happy with their current situations.I've seen/read in many places that it is best practice to stagger leases as much as possible in order to avoid the possibility of multiple tenants moving out around the same time, leaving numerous units to be turned over.Would it best for me to try and get 2 of the 4 tenants to renew a two-year lease (which they've done in past) and the other two tenants agree to a one-year or three-year lease (both have been year-to-year in past ).

I've also used the calculators to run some quick analysis of a few multifamily rentals pulled off zillow as practice to understand the calculations.

Put it into practice there.