Never has to go through that hypothetical situation. 

As the seller I would pay for the energy audit, do the analysis on the work to be done (cost vs savings) and then market the home with a prepackaged improvement contract that would meet lender guidelines (solar, EE windows, etc). 45 day close to allow for enough time to do loan and obtain permits, occupancy COE+2. 

You can sign up for these on a great website called Meetup.Financial Preparation:Evaluate Your Finances: Understand your current financial situation, including savings, credit score, and any potential sources of funding.Create a Budget: Establish a budget for your first investment.

If you refinance the property now the loan would be $100K at 20% down and $80K would have gone to repay the original loan.First, if these are your numbers for rehab cost and after repair value, it is probably not a good deal to begin with and you shouldn't be doing it.

I am focusing on trying to find off market deals and working with creative finance since expansion is slow moving based on my salary, and I'm too impatient to wait for the duplexes to earn another down payment.Is there a financing option that I am missing to get a loan for a down payment?

Do you still think that would be the most viable in our situation?

The loan can be structured with no pre-payment penalties so your not tied in for a handful of years.  

My dilemma is that I worry that commercial lenders won’t fund any renovations or wrap it into the loan.

This got me looking into 24 month Bank statement Non QM loans to help my financing.

I would assume the mortgage would need to be changed because it's a personal loan.