On a different note, please view my new posting about our current venture:  https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/663...As always, your input is greatly appreciated!

.- Still risky overall, what if the buyer loses his job in 3 years for some unknown reason, he won't be able to refinance at all.

And if so what happens if the market crashes and you lose that money.

But you can end up losing a lot of the value of it if all your doing is diluting your equity so it splits between a not so good rental (the one you refi) and a good one. 

Basically you need investors who have a lot of cash parked in a money market and aren't sure what to do with it --- the stock market is volatile but they know their savings are losing value every month because of inflation.

We are worried that college education funds could negatively impact our ability to obtain college financial aid, particularly if i quit/lose my job/retire prior to our kids going to college.  

I make a great Return on this rental so I would rather lose 100$ a month to a cleaning service and keep the Tenants that are otherwise great.

I'll lose the $450 in monthly cashflow - but I can take $80k and buy a $400k property with it.

With lower cash flow per month a couple vacancies or one bad tenant and you can lose all the income.

I tell all my buyers this when they lose out.