I am looking for a few creative strategies for using the rental to purchase several other  properties , so I am considering selling it and paying off the mortgage and starting again,  or refinancing it and using the equity for buying other properties,  but this would increase the amount owed on two mortgages.  

@Ethan Anderson Thanks for highlighting the key words several times.

Many are new to investing so a flat out partnership is not that attractive to me with any 1 of them as I don't really need the money to fund simple deals.However, I am considering amping up my investing and buying a larger project or several at one time.  

We had an issue with the tenant for months (not paying) and tried for several months to find out from the Property Management company what was happening with the tenant. 

First, are you buying 5 properties, or one property with several structures?   

I'm thinking of using combination of LOCs and HELOCs to serve as my reserve funds, but I've been warned several times that this can be risky. 

I've owned several homes over the years and am now thinking of making the leap into investing.

I know I have came across several motivated sellers that had nice homes I wanted to keep for myself.

-Will my Private Lender who I would like to do several more deals with have an issue with me taking this deal?

My research has found across several real estate platforms (Zillow and Redfin) that the estimated value is actually somewhere around $105000-110000.