If it's truly 3 distinct SFRs and you want to use Fannie/Freddie financing, it'll be 3 contracts, 3 escrows, 3 mortgages for $40k each, 3 sets of closing costs, etc.That being said, with loan amounts this small, I'm guessing that commercial or hard money financing might just be better if you can find someone to blanket loan on all three at once just for the sake of 1 set of closing costs.Using fannie/freddie financing on loan amounts that small, the closing costs start to become a ridiculous % of the loan amount.

If I understand, you bought three properties cash, you want to do a cash out refinance on those properties to pull the equity out to buy more property.

This is especially important if the funds from the equity or future cash-flow are vital to your retirement lifestyle (everyday expenses or emergency money).I can only think of three other options I would consider with pros and cons:1.)

If it's a decent sized multifamily and if you haven't raised the rent 50% in the past three years, but basically maintained them then I would probably use some equity to buy another well cash flowing property.

You need to get you funding letter that says you have the funds to buy, several Realtors will also ring up your lender to find out how strong it is before they accept an offer now its that competitive. 

Every three or six months there's magically a seasoned 25% down plus needed PITI reserves, ready for the next purchase, sitting in a plain old boring Wells Fargo checking account without a lot of activity on those two months of bank statements I ask for.They write offers that end in 888, or want me to tweak their loan amount down so the base loan amount is $XXX,888.

I see there are about three meet-up groups in the area.

I'm going to have her call all three suggestions and see what happens. 

When folks headhunt me, I ask for three things.1) Access to their interest rate pricing.2) Put me on the phone with the regional underwriting manager. 3) Put me on the phone with your regional operations manager.4) I'm not interested in talking to you, headhunter/recruiter dude, so go away.I have found that there is absolutely a trade-off.

In short, if you want a seller-carryback note created on or after January 1, 2014, if it is a private individual, trust, or estate, then ask them to sign an affidavit saying that they have not done more than three in a 12-month period and how many of them had balloons.