Buy for cash flow and have liquidity to ride out disruptions.

You could buy several 2-4 unit properties, or a larger multi-family.

Thus, its safe to say that the neighborhood itself is in fact C+/B-.What has your experience been with the introduction of low-income, subsidized housing (at a larger scale) as it relates to property values in middle to upper-middle class neighborhoods? 

On the larger side, syndicators buy apartment complexes with passive investors.

Understanding the interest rates would be higher etc, but would a bank not let me REFI at a larger loan amount which would let me get cash out?  

But that assumption, implies that the rental property you are buying is actually negative cash flow, which is not what people are looking for (unless there is far larger appreciation component than you are giving credit for).  

And those loans that you possibly could get without a job will require significant liquidity and net worth, on top of typically only being available at the $1mm loan balance level and up.As for buying a property cash, you could.  

I know they are larger, but they are a credit union.

Every deal I've been a part of had a lender that would have had this requirement, but those deals were all larger multifamily syndications.

Once reno is complete cash out refinance or sell the property and collect the profit.I use my HELOC to move fast on deals I KNOW I can make money on and like to have options for how I could hold or liquidate that property.