My personal home has around $114,000 in equity.

I now have maybe $2,000,000 in equity in the building and am renting it out for $12,500 / mo. as a luxury residence.

@Andrew McManus I was in a similar situation with $175K in equity so I called Regions Bank and they are giving me a 15 year term loan using the house as collateral.

You should have 100K or more in equity to protect before it makes sense to spend that money - compare that with how much you spend in annual insurance for the same property/equity (on the same FEAR principles, just in case your property might burn down).

Instant $110k in equity, nice!

He hasn’t made a payment in more than 11 years and wants to negotiate a lower payoff with $200k in equity?

The book has a chapter on this:"A tax rule allows you to deduct up to $5000 in start-up expenses the first year you are in business, and then deduct the remainder in equal amounts over the next 15 years." 

Condo has about 100,000 in equity right now.

So we have $35,250 in equity on day 1.We then renovate the kitchen and redo a bathroom for a total of $25k.We get the house appraised after the seasoning period (guessing 6 months?).

They say they buy properties that need a little improvement to get some built in equity.