I'm looking to get a loan for my first non-owner occupied rental property but my current lender is telling me my debt to income ratio is too high due to my student loans and mortgage.

First as a general rule try not to pay skilled labor prices for unskilled work.

Conventional loan How did you add value to the deal?

You woul get signiture loans from banks for half the rate from that credit card.

Any conventional loan products for property in a flood zone (not sure what flood zone 9 is) requires flood insurance, which can be very expensive, and rates have been rising each year. 

I always stayed away from Section 8 at that time and did Zero down purchase doing 80/20 loans and/or interest free loans as well. 

The February JOLTs report (Job Openings & Labor Turnover) showed job openings were steady month-over-month at 8.7–8.8 million.

However, the rents are slightly lower and could potentially wipe out your monthly cashflows with one major repair.As for higher appreciation market like West/East Coast, it's more expensive, but rents are higher due to a strong labor market, there will be a certain amount of demand for those markets, but the downside is that you will need to be creative by adding more values for the property.

you'd use the DSCR loan to pay off the hard money loan.

I am a Loan Officer in San Bernardino County, and the real estate agents I work with are always coming across solid deals here and there.