@Jay JohnsonOne thing to remember when you are getting into RE investing is to have your team of people or as Brandon Turner from the Bigger Pockets Podcast calls it your CORE 41.

If the math works ok but it should be compelling and  a no brainer in savings for you to refinance now, in this market.

I won't go with the riskiest opportunistic strategies, and will stick to core and core plus mostly with some value-added.

If you're looking to invest OOS you should check out this Bigger Pocket Blog here: Core 4 Members of a Profitable Long-Distance Real Estate Investing Team (biggerpockets.com)explaining what's needed and how to build your Big Four team so you will have boots on the ground ready to move full speed ahead when you're ready to pull the trigger.

Real Estate -I had written a long response to your post, but I'll just leave it at this...The core advantage of the tactics I suggest -- and the reason I suggest every investor follow it -- is:A good appraiser who dislikes my approach (like you, for example) will never skew an appraisal downwards for that reason; but plenty of appraisers may be influenced positively by my approach.

Right now, I'm setting up my core LLC. 

@Lisa Thoele You might look into the market by talking to other tiny house people and or meet ups to see if there is a demand for tiny houses spaces that far out of the core areas. 

The challenge is to find one where someone interested in tiny houses would want to live (urban core).

Then I would focus on growing relationships and building your core 4.

Make sure you build a solid core-4 team so you can be confident throughout the whole process.