And this in turn will make the system run non-stop all the time which is going to crush my gas bills.  

A few of the units around me dropped their prices, but even then they wound up renting to people that I rejected due to any number of reasons, so the season has definitely thinned the pool of good prospects.My units show well and are all updated, but I have fairly high criteria (650+ credit, non smoker, 3x rent) so it may also be a factor.

One interesting story she told me was one obstinate seller, who is non wavering on his price.

I wouldn't shy away from the deal.. just realized you would have to give proper notice of non-renewal to that apartment and you also let sec 8 know the lease is not going to be renewed. 

As I mentioned my condo is 4600 sq ft, my brother in law just bought a condo in NYC for over $4500/sq ft, so a comparable condo in his building would be $20m in NYC vs $3.7M in Houston.Im not saying Houston is as good as those other places, but its still very cheap and we have plenty of non oil jobs.

HELOC will be harder on non-primary residence and a commercial loan would work but crush your profitability for no real gain. call a bundle of lenders until you have some options.

A private lender can be any non-traditional lender.

I don’t have a credit score, as I am from Europe and so no fico score. I do invest in US, I have 2 investment properties, cash deals in an LLC. They are cash flowing great:Asset 1 doing 775$Asset 2 doing 1150$Now I wo...

Bottom line though for a buy and hold investor Property tax's are an important component and all things being equal if your in non appreciating states. .Like Texas basically has been for ever and a day ( except Austin ) and the little bit of run up they have had..

Dodd-Frank has convinced most private (non-bank) lenders to cease this practice.