If you do a good job you can either do more or bigger deal flow or reduce your cost of capital for a fixed size of deal flow. 

If I can reduce my monthly payments by $200/month, would it make sense to refinance?

I plan on reducing rent 20% or more if there is a surge in vacancies when things go south. 

I think it is a great way to reduce one of your largest monthly expenses, rent if not live rent free.You may be eligible for tax deductions that you were not entitled to before. 

This will reduce costs to minor park maintenance and taxes.

The private money would be the bulk with the seller holding the rest while we get in there and get some minor repairs done and rents up.

I know you have a lot of property there but where in Houston are the bulk of the properties located?

There are discount brokerages out there you can work with that offer reduced commissions but you get what you pay for as they say; working with these brokerages will limit the number of properties you get access to because the traditional brokerages don’t like working with them.

Overall costs need to be reduced by $8k for me to do it.

However the aesthetics of modular houses are more modern (sell easier) and the turn around time reduces carrying costs substantially.