The cash from those businesses goes into stocks and RE for safe keeping. 

Flipping, Wholesaling, Owning Rentals, Crypto, Stocks, etc.

It was the same when I was actively involved as a day trader in the stock market.

I’ve been hitting dead ends as far as finding funding options being an out of town investor in the Pittsburgh area.

In my area it is common for landlords to pay for heat which promotes a lot of abuse with the system in that tenants keep the heat at unreasonably high temperatures and often open the windows in the dead of winter when it can be -20 out.

I wouldn't pay off the house entirely, as you can deploy that cash into more real estate or stocks.

So we wouldn't be losing any space by adding this extra 1/2 btr, on the contrary, it's pretty much a "dead space" and the tenants sleeping upstairs wouldn't need to go downstairs in the middle of the night or every morning - definitely more convenient

It sounds as just like you got pulled in with a mastermind class for $10k, you see shiny objects like crypto or stocks going up and think your approach/investment is bad. 

This is a really slow season, schools are starting back, Aug is dead until Labor day and then a small bounce in bookings for Labor day.

Cold-calling is all but a dead-art, but the principles remain.