And after they pulled back the sheetrock, and part of the roof, there was much more than we anticipated.

I refinanced into a 30year and pulled out enough money to use as a down payment for my next.

I think it's a good business model if you can pull it off.

What I do to see if the seller is motivated is, I pull title reports on properties to see how much a seller paid for the property and the balances of the mortgage.

I am enthusiastic, but slightly hesitant to pull the trigger.

Anyways, i got in to the property for not a ton of money and now i have a completely fixed up property less than 12 months later that is fully rented, cash flows, and i'm closing on a refinance soon and pulling out about 20-30k for my next deal.

But like @Amanda G. stated, it can be difficult to pull a HELOC from an investment property.

My question is what is the best option to pull out our cash?

I think you have two viable options.Refinance one of the properties and pull cash out to pay off debt and fix properties.  

And supposedly, you can't even pull criminal history until the tenant is otherwise approved, which is intended to prevent "finding" a reason to deny otherwise.