We paid the arrears owed & paid off the small mortgage balance to get free & clear title.

I am waiting patiently for the costs to balance and then recalculate. 

Other wrinkles as well to what qualifies.You have to make sure you aggregate properties.Managing the manager(s) is ok as part of the hours, but if that’s all you are doing you are at risk.We actually sought out smaller properties to hands on manage to balance out a large triple net purchase.

I understand the BRRRR strategy but why would you want to have 10 homes with debt when you should be paying off the ones with the lower balances to 0 and carry 7-8 homes with 65-80% LTV..

Ask for a balance transfer check, make sure it's not categorized a cash advance.

Then, over time, as my balance sheet and reserves grew, I increased the size of my acquisitions. 

My plan now is to attack that balance with every dollar earned in rent above the mortgage. 

What you may need to be aware, in terms of budgeting, is that typically 401k will only allow you borrow up to 50% of your vested balance, so in your case of 10k balance, you may only be allowed to take out 5k, with some minimal fees and all that, you should consider if that is still a viable option for your situation.

This implies the owner will sell the property for less than the mortgage balance. 

From your numbers above it looks like there is equity, so you would want to base pricing off the unpaid balance and not the value of the property.