A good agent will very likely get you a better deal with better terms and more oversight than you can get yourself especially as a 1st time investor, I will often see things about a property either in the property itself or the listing that would easily get missed by a 1st time buyer, eventually the more deals you do the less you may need an agent, but your 1st few it’s important imo.

As to the exact underwriting guidelines with a log cabin I am not sure but an agent quoting your property will easily be able to figure that out.

Using a mortgage calculator, you can easily compare your current mortgage to a 30 year mortgage at the current rates to have an estimate prior to getting the info from your mortgage broker.  

It’s definitely worth considering if you want to scale your real estate portfolio quickly and easily.

You could easily be looking at a total of $10k-$15k in total closing costs on a deal this size.So now, you have $18k in and you spent your first $10k in rehab. 

If they are professional, they can explain this quickly and easily.

You could have just as easily blown that HELOC money on booze and hookers!

I easily have the capital to make up for the difference. 

Tampa, the main seat of Hillsborough county, has seen a cool off just like the rest of the country and getting a 4 unit in that price range is attainable.As you mentioned, you first want to buy a place to live in; this could be the perfect setup: live in 1 and rent the other 3 out to cover your mortgage and maybe even have positive cash flow.

I'll definitely get all of my investment and money spent on overhead back in the refi, but do I continue forward with the BRRRR, take the small loss each month, and bank on rates eventually coming down some more where I would refi again to bring the payment down OR pivot to flipping it where I'd make, easily, $40-50k net profit AFTER setting aside capital gain taxes?