The ones who purchased earlier did refi's and home eq loans and pulled out their equity in cash.

I'm using the winter/down season to learn and looking to pull the trigger on my first property in Spring.Thanks in advance for your input!

Your student loan debt is being serviced from after aftertax income, so that 6.8% needs to be adjusted for your marginal tax rate to yield what you must actually earn to service that debt (could be closer to 9-10% pre-tax).If you have forced appreciation in the house and it will appraise for 135K, you may be able to pull additional equity from the home to pay down (or pay off) your student debt ... effectively transferring your student loan (6.8%) to your mortgage (4.x%?).  

Then I wrapped one end around a piece of conduit to create a loop in the wire and pulled the conduit out.  

These fees drove up the price of what I could wholesale it for, and I ended up having to pull out of the deal because I couldn't move it. 

If there's still room for some profit after the estimates then pull the trigger on a construction loan to convert the property.    

@Powell Chee - if you have experience with other rentals and have estimated your own expenses and have a reasonable reserve fund, then I would pull out as much cash as you can and still have positive cash flow.  

The bank may have had a goal of moving x amount of properties off the market in a certain time frame, and when that happened they pulled the others from the market till a later day.

I still haven't pulled the trigger on my first rental property, but definitely going to make sure I'm properly insured. 

Thanks for the advice, I am hesitant to pull out any of my retirement funds to fund any of the real estate.