Russell,Paying fees to refinance is part of the party to grow your portfolio.

With this strategy, I spend about 5-10 hours per week "managing" this portfolio and it handily pays our families bills. 

I am hoping that I can scale up sufficiently where a bank or a lender (private or commercial) is willing to look at us for financing and hopefully refinancing the whole portfolio or give us financing where we can start purchasing in with methods so we have more options on the table given that seller finance deals are hard to come by some times.  

@Nick Ruffini There is a million reasons people do it but I think, from what I have been reading, is people use that money to expand their portfolio.

I hope to add a few more properties in Spokane to the portfolio. 

This way your equity even is giving you a return.Once your portfolio reaches critical mass, or you hit your target numbers or cash flow you can transition over to paying down debt to prepare for the final distribution phase.However, people need to retire, or go full time, at some point this is called your distribution phase, so when that time comes be sure the properties are paid off by that time to maximize cash flow in retirement.A great book on this topic and more is Gary Keller's The Millionaire Real Estate Investor.

With my current income we are able to save about 1k a month after all expenses, but i feel like saving more will speed up our real estate portfolio.  

I have 2 SFH rentals so far and looking to add to my portfolio.

This is commonly referred to as the BRRRR strategy.If you are looking to grow a portfolio to gain passive income to replace your current income this is a perfect strategy to use.  

All those in #Jacksonville, interested in their professionalism, come to the next free meeting Thursday Sept 27.They have a nice book available online at Amazon, discussing the hardships, Joe had a $500,000 portfolio wiped out from the Great Recession and there is detail in the book about the family and how they invest.