The more hands off you get, the lower the returns.

Once it's rented, use that rental income to help offset your DTI, which may help you qualify for the second property sooner.Partner with Investors: Team up with someone to split costs and lower your personal DTI impact.

Prices are far lower there “relatively” speaking due to low demand.  

If I can park the 388k ($415-27k) for one year at CD rate of 4.5% and then est 300k (after paying cap gain/depr recap) at 3.0% (assume CD rates lower) that interest income of about 24 months net of ordinary income tax is about the same as my current mortgage.Trying to play devil's advocate and think why selling this year does not make sense. 

As for by-the-room rentals, many lenders won't allow that and if they do, they qualify you off of the long term market rents (which, as I'm sure you can imagine, would be considerably lower than the actual per-room rents).

I used to live in the lower mainland but invested where the numbers work like Vancouver Island or Northern BC.

Typically, higher income areas have lower crime, more amenities, better schools.  

Getting a loan to payoff another loan with a lower interest rate doesn't make any sense. we do private lending and can get double digits returns consistently.

The Heloc can also pose as a debt obstacle since its an open end mortgage a.k.a credit card.a mortgage is also set up over 30 years so it offers a lower rate and payment. 

If your current lender is open to restructuring, you could negotiate better terms (lower rate or extended term).