I'm primarily interested in buy and hold using the BRRR method, but am flexible to any opportunity that may come up.

@Justin MespeltNormally credit unions have better rates and bit more flexible for HELOC of primary residence.  

Being flexible with the seller and allowing him to remain in the residence after the sale helped us negotiate a better price.

My current end goal is to create a passive, sustainable stream of income that will allow my family and I to travel and with a good deal of flexibility and not require too much time investment per week (would 20-30 hours/wk be an unrealistic expectation once my business is up and running?).

The fact is the lender will do an appraisal and  that will come back at or  near market value and you will not have a lot of flexibility from that.

There is also the genre seeking financial freedom and the 100% passive income that can empower them to retire.All types of real estate investing, in some way, offer some form of ‘passive income’.

Banks underwrite based on ratios, but their are a lot of sophisticated tweaks to make sure are in place with your original mortgage to ensure you're flexible & in the best position to continue to buy property.Would be happy to discuss further over DM.

Depending on your bank and how flexible they you could ask for a 3rd party appraisal and pay for it or get a realtor to run comps and present to your loan officer... the other option and most likely a winner would be to shop the loan around to several banks and see what they can do for you.

Allows many flexible ownership arrangements for a team of real estate investors to work together.

So if they dont want to pay an agent they probably dont want to be flexible on their price either.