I also enjoy hearing a personal stories from guests as opposed to a "how to" episode from the host(s).  

This way, the bank lends on the rental income “business value”, Vs simply the appraised value of the home.

Most banks don't want to deal with that. 

Seller, RE agent, bank, contractor, inspecter???

Hey Tate, here's what my commercial lender @ US Bank uses for pro forma debt coverage calculations if he doesn't have 2 years and YTD historical data (basically, seller's schedule E's)Vacancy: 10% of gross rents, unless there is sufficient market data at the bank's disposal to justify lower vacancy rates for the type of asset in question, OR detailed historical vacancy data from seller.Management: 3% gross rents or actuals, whichever is higher, with property management agreement provided to close.Cash Reserves: 3% of gross rentsTaxes: Actual data used.Insurance: 3% of gross rents, or as shown by insurance policy.Operating reserve: 20% - 25% depending on the type of asset and amount of historical data provided.

We have good credit (by any standard) and a decent bank account (by college standards) but not enough to put down the standard 15-25% most HML and private lenders prefer.

I borrowed the loan through a small bank after showing them the cashflow numbers.

Screening is very fast and complete - I can elect to accept CC and set the convenience fee (I do charge a tad above costs), and I find its pretty easy to reconcile a tenants payment via "serial number" or transaction ID reported to the bank with both Rentec accounting AND quickbooks - albeit Quickbooks is still manual for me (you can export from Rentec to Quickbooks via CSV... havent got that far along yet.We literally just completed several rehabs (meaning LOTS of expense), so seeing rents come in quickly and accurately is a relief for a change!

1. most banks/ credit unions are telling me I have to wait a minimum of 6 months after closing before I can get a cash out refi..

I have bought REO property--ones that are already foreclosed by the bank off auction.com.