Always better to just get rid of it or give it to the less fortunate if you are in an area where that is possible. 

@Alfred Amponsah fortunately in Texas it's not too difficult to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent.

Fortunately, we weren't fooled and we lost no money, but it wasted a ton of time and faith in humanity.

I would tend to agree with other posts about not going to college, IF, you were planning on getting a Bachelor of Arts Degree, as friends and peers of mine that did get an Arts Degree ended up having to learn all the business stuff on their own via books, mentors,or on the job training, as I am quite sure the college naysayers, posting here, had to learn that stuff too...fortunately for you, and them, all disciplined and motivated individuals can learn almost everything on the internet for free.Best of luck and success, and I applaud your intentions and efforts!

This won’t be a huge surprise (hopefully), but after hedging, qualifying, and sometimes obfuscating counter-claims in articles from the past couple years, it’s good to see Fortune confirming what common sense hinted at all along: the housing market run-up of 2020-present was significantly contributed to by investors large and small:https://fortune.com/2022/06/26...What do you think?  

Most of the houses in those neighborhoods are early 1900s unreinforced masonry, and it's fairly common to find significant structural issues that would cost a fortune to repair (not to mention, these are the properties that will suffer the most damage when the big earthquake happens--which is a matter of "when", not "if").

@Benjamin Schwartz, you may want to also weigh which cities are growing and are attracting fortune 500 companies with lots of high paying jobs.

Texas now leads the nation in the number of Fortune 500 companies that are headquartered in the state, it was revealed this week.

I'm fortunate to have a side-hustle too so I'll keep chugging away on that to keep building.

I'm fortunate to have a broker who I've worked with for years who is both highly experienced, and who will be completely honest with me about what is, and what is not possible (even if it means he loses a deal).Now, for the other part of your question--you asked whether there's a chance your refi rate will be higher than your buy rate...I'd say that not only is there a chance, but it's almost a guarantee.