The hardwood floor in the living room and bedrooms also appear as different shades/stains.We are not sure whether to just refinish the hardwood floors or replace the hardwood floor with vinyl.Does the (assumed) increased worth of hardwood floors compensate for the (assumed) loss of value due to the mismatched floor styles and materials throughout the home?

Every year, rents increases, outstanding mortgage balance decreases, you may refinance into more ideal lending terms also.

Charlotte is obviously an attractive destination.

I wouldnt increase my tax bill to show higher income , self employeed , they want 2 or 3 years 

STR or MTR are also an option to increase cash flow. 

Nearby attractions are helpful for non-show days.

Thanks @Davidnothing very specific,  but prefer local which can attract renters. so location, easy to rent :) prefer low or no hoa and no land lease ( if possible)

I can see being attracted to passive fund investing living in an extremely expensive market.  

Often, just increasing the liability limits or getting an umbrella can put you back in the same place coverage wise.It also works in reverse.  

And in order to make those projected returns pencil-out they used very aggressive/nonconservative underwriting including very high leverage (above 65%), floating rate loans (higher projected return but increased the risk of catastrophic default if interest rates rose), financially engineered capital stacks (which increase the risk of a problem for the normal equity investors in ways that are similar to taking on more debt), very high sponsor split compsensation that financially incentivize them to push the risk-envolope etc.On the other hand, all the conservatively underwritten multi-family deals (low leverage, fixed rate loans, simple capital stacks, average sponsor split compensation) are almost universally fine.Another area having problems is in the riskiest strategies like ground-up construction (opportunistic)...because everything is more expensive than projected.