How confident are you that you'll be able to refinance within a year? 

I bet you run a seriously amazing, and legit, business.I also have a soft spot for this because I volunteer in California prisons, one day a month and six full weekends a year, and I work with the inmates directly and I know for a fact that so many of them have your kind of mind and drive and skill.

I bet @Jon Holdman has a good answer to this - per usual.

Few years back during my divorce, my ex- husband and I agreed that I would refinance (refi) the condo just under my name in order to remove his name from the title.

Buy the distressed property, rehab it, get it stabilized and fully occupied at market rents, then refinance and repeat.

My question is, would owner financing be an option for me over the next three years where I can continue to live in the house and pay down the ultimate purchase price and refinance at the end of my tour so I could keep the house long term as a buy and hold type rental where the numbers work out for me.

(Not a live in flip) He also was wondering if he should refi his house, pull 75k out, pay the vehicles off and put the rest down on a new house. rent the original house out and take that money to pay the refi mortgage, the rent would cover the mortgage plus an extra 150 per month ..I’ve been telling him about refining his house and use that towards a BRRRR or some other real estate investing.

Since that time the seller obtained a cash out refinance for $50k, with Wells Fargo. 

I bet they change their tune when you ask for this.

My numbers look like:Rent                            $750Vacancy(8.3%)            $62Property Taxes           $71Insurance                    $58Repairs/capex(18%)   $135Management(10%)    $75Cash Flow                    $349Option 1: refinance at 6M-1Y with a  30 yr mortgage.