At closing, I received a credit for pro rata estimated property taxes for 2017. 

The first refi will clean up my credit report and raise my fico score enough qualify for the best rates on a rate and term after.

Anyone I should ask for and give you the credit for the referral?

Hey jake, i encourage you to fix your credit and save money before proceeding.

Concentrate on large findings that should result in price reduction or a credit at closing.  

Hey Matt,You can definitely ask the sellers for credit back to complete this repair.

Typically big banks and credit unions are captive to a single PMI provider, mortgage brokerages and banks can shop it among mortgage insurance providers.

These 6 months I was working with my developers to "create" a site (system) that, once published, would be considered creditable. 

Credit is good but I’m not sure which mortgage company will do the refinance.

Yet, after listening to you it almost seems like we should be searching out other deals and getting money from private people as early as possible.Much like you I have a little experience in construction from my college days (working for a contractor on my days off from school and over summers but I'm not a craftsmen), so there is a small advantage there, but ultimately it sounds like if I want to get to that "freedom number" faster, or at least earlier, I'm going to have to figure out how to scale.I'm under no delusions that I am an expert after one deal, but I thought that after doing 2-3 deals and making them successful we would then have the creditably to get loans from others to really acquire some volume.