The Main St property in Grainfield, KS, offered a promising opportunity due to its low purchase price and strong potential for a high return after renovations.

The median home price is also very low nationwide which creates a low barrier to entry.

Your estimate seems low, but even at that cost, it will not add that value.  

I'm currently renting and when  decided I wanted to focus on real estate investing, I decided not to buy in Tampa because of the low MF inventory and in home house hacking is not for me.

You can still achieve it, but finding deals that actually pencil out on all criteria (low enough purchase price, low enough renovation cost, cash flows on the backend, all cash out at refinance) is pretty hard.

I'm an investor and mortgage broker and have options for loans that go as low as $75,000 and down payments as low as 15%, which makes it easier to stay above $75,000.

note if we sell the primary residence, it is very likely we will not need mortgages to buy smaller rentals as we would use that mostly.Though I take your point on keeping it. our house was a new construction (3 years old) though so possibly low maintenance risk to keep for a rental. 

If after interest rates spiked a buyer waited for them to drop back to 7%, they would have waited 21 years til 1993 for them to get that low again.Hope he isn't holding his breath.

Quote from @Fernando Martin-Gullans: Hey y’all, I’m a retail investor with 2 SFH rentals worth a combined ~$650k looking to utilize some of my stored equity to buy more out-of-state properties, but I’m not quite sure how best to proceed given that my interest rates are incredibly low (leaning me away from refinancing) and neither property is owner-occupied (which I believe prevents me from using a HELOC).

Rents have been pretty close to what the housing authorities advertise, sometimes even a bit higher.Fort Wayne’s a solid spot with low taxes and good cash flow—definitely worth looking into.