Hate to be the dissenting voice here, but if you fully disclose that your child would be occupying the property you might run into some trouble with the non-owner occupancy that is usually required with a DSCR loan - your child falls into the category of immediate family and many undewriters would assume that if your child didn't pay their rent, either you wouldn't evict them or you would pay the rent for them, which then affects the cash-flow on the property level, which then affects the DSCR. 

Might be time to look into an IRRRL on the primary as well. 

The numbers especially don't work when I go the equity route and factor that into the cashflow.

This could allow you to take advantage of bonus depreciation, which can significantly accelerate the depreciation deductions in the year you place the property into service

Sounds like a deep dive into the numbers is what you need.1.

That's just my $.02 but I'm sure others have been operating differently with success.As for neighborhoods, West Side, South Buffalo, Kaisertown, decent sections of Black Rock and Riverside, pockets of North Buffalo, maybe some sections of Cheektowaga are going to fall into those categories.

Take a peak into options for real estate investing and see what truly piques your interest (long-term, mid-term, short-term, storage units, fix and flip, live and flip, buy and hold, and I can go on forever).

What you do have to check into are the limits for staying so that you don't lose your Canadian Health Insurance.

It's almost a full time job trying to figure it out if you want to get into the intricacy's of it.

If your main concern is on the refi end the you could also move some properties into portfolios (just make sure that you truly plan to keep these as they may have partial release fees attached).