If you can increase income / reduce expenses enough to meet your target appraisal number, you may be able to get the loan size you're looking for.

The rent needs to be raised this year 2018, taxes increased and so did maintenance costs.

When I run my numbers on the actual income and expenses on an SFH, I make sure I account for the increased taxes that are going to occur after purchase, you can call the tax assessor for that property to check or go to the county's website.

But it increased the value of my home by about $150-$200k and I didn’t pay a dime out of pocket for any of the construction.

If the property contains a residential structure, you can make repairs and redemption will include the amount you increased the value of the property with your repairs.

You'll lose your money to turn over, repairs, and increase your risk of getting taking advantage of.

In this case, the deposit was increased to $400k which would have been the down payment to the Seller anyway.

Either the amount of renovation won't increase the after renovation value or sellers are asking fair market price without any room to negotiate.

I guaranty if you were to battle anther realtor with a borrower/ buyer who was to do as I described above, 7 out of 10 times you would lose down here in FL  with that outdated strategy of "Poor Mouthing the Offer" with ridiculous Good Faith Deposit amount in escrow.If I were selling a 500k home, and an a buyer hit me with a 5k deposit, their offer would be out like the fat kid in 5th grade dodge ball!

So, I am thinking of couple of strategies.1) To sell and reinvest in other properties, i will have to do a 1031 exchange since it has been about 5 years since it has been my primary residence.2) continue to rent it out and wait for value to increase further.