One of my tenants quit paying rent almost a year ago.

When you say pull your money out of it, would you be paying cash for the property?

The inefficiencies in this market should be a huge opportunity for folks who take the time to find and vet operators and projects, and come to the table with clear theses, looking for operators and projects that match those theses, rather than reacting with FOMO to promises from the most famous influencers in the industry.I think it is mission-critical that BiggerPockets and this community shines a light on the industry and exposes the good and bad operators, and steers LP capital away from "lopsided bets" and towards humble, honest, hungry, capital raisers offering solid projects in areas they have clear competency in.

If I'd know that I'd be paying it for the life of the loan I would have been better off paying the extra 5% down payment and enjoyed the lower interest rate but I don't recall ever being informed of that or reading it anywhere in my documents.

@Alex Perez  aside from the advice you received already pay attention and get a good fabric on your furniture.

But imagine you don't pay cash but rather borrow so your 5k cash/closing-down payment to buy a 100k STR, then in year 1 it rises 2k - only a paltry 2%, but you make a 40% profit as you are levered 20:1, and that beats the best year for stocks ever. 

Now you need to figure out how to find deals and pay for them.

Like do some cleaning job, contacting maintenance people, knowing how to pay water bills etc. these are all the basic work when you become a landlord and you need to know how to manage your property first.

The plan is to Refinance after a year, applying what is pulled out, back to the mostgage to pay it off as quick as posble.

There are some "no doc" loans out there that investors or other folks use, but the tradeoff is that the rate ends up being higher than conventional loans.