@Shawn P Kontrec  I love your point that you don't see a point to invest in Real Estate if it doesn't produce the same return as another market investment. 

Hi, I am selling a four-property income-producing portfolio and have put together a model for potential buyers.

The other option would be to refi as an investment property and just look at the rental income produced

Isn’t real estate a wonderful thing, $30k gets you a $500k Income producing asset, and you live for free....and bonus..

You need to compliment you wealth building strategy with an income-producing strategy. 

But having a paid off, income producing, & appreciation asset is my end goal.3) The diversification that I mentioned in an earlier post.

Having a mindset of this 80% vs 20% (rich) realtors is not a good approach - most of the top producers have worked hard, established themselves in the community & followed up with good systems to maintain relationships with clientele.

The most practical ways to increase your return on equity are:- Increase rents or reduce operating expenses to produce more cash flow- Refinance your property, pulling equity out- Sell homes or properties that are producing, or which you expect to produce low ROE, and purchase new ones with higher expected returnsHope this helps! 

Are commercial lenders able and/or generally willing to use an income based appraisal on 2-4 units, if income based produces a much higher value than market based?

What I do know is I need to figure out how much I I'll get for my initial HEL and the highest mortgage I can qualify for for safely; then I can find a property that fits my price range, then I need to analyze the property to make sure it's going to produce positive cash flow, and finally I think I'm supposed to go to http://www.city-data.com and https://www.bls.gov/ to check out things like employment, construction, and mortgage trends in that area to really see if it would be a good investment for now and well int the future.