Will I get dinged on the appraisal enough to make it worth changing the furnace ahead of time?

The line of credit would give full access to your equity instantly and you would only pay simple interest on the amount borrowed at any given time.

There wasn't a firm decision that he made at that point in time, hence things were undecided and unsettled. and not at any point in time, Tenant sent a written letter of move out intent/notice until recently, mid-August '24, when I got the first written "move out notice" from him via "email" that he ll vacate the house on Sept 01 and that the payment will be left on the counter.

The terms of the financing (interest rate, balloon payment timing) need to make sense for your exit strategy.I would recommend getting a detailed inspection to ensure there aren't any major issues you're overlooking.

Plenty of times $ are not in the contract...so when you agree with the seller for sale of $300,000, they think that is what they are netting, when there could be charges of title insurance, surveys, lender required repairs, prorated taxes, escrow fees, etc. 

(This allows us time to raise rents plus appreciation over 5 years to then do a portfolio refinance to pay back the line of credit). 

On the plus side, if the property cash flows with a DSCR loan, when it comes time to refinance time with a lower rate it will improve on cash flow lol. 

So the question is going to be where you think rates will be in 5 years and if it will warrant a refinance at the time. 

She does investor bus tours in Detroit all the time and has a lot of relationships there even though she lives in Cali.

I haven't heard of this person before either and while some paid courses can be good, I too am a skeptic of them often times.