Post back if you find another lender who serves you well, and I will add them to my list and pay it forward.

What happens if they don't pay rent or refuse to lease?

Tennessee doesn’t have personal income tax but if we create an LLC we would have to pay state income tax.

My goal when I got the building was to live in my building while having my tenants pay for nearly all of my mortgage.  

With this in mind, should I do a cash out refi on the property in order to buy another property now or should I try to pay it off quicker and add equity, or do nothing at all?

They seem to just forward emails and pay vendors and collect the assessment fees.

An older (60's) remodeled home I bought via New Western for $223 that has a current tenant who pays $1650/mo; it has an apartment above a detached garage that was billed as needing "$10k in repairs to get to top of market rent."

In Charlotte, NC and in Charleston, SC, we have such an extreme lack of inventory, especially at the lower end of affordability- seller's aren't giving up their 2.99% interest rate to downsize and pay more for a home with a higher rate, so they are staying on the sidelines. and Builders cannot ramp up fast enough, and are being very cautious due to interest rates, coupled with inflation, where their goods and services also cost more to build homes- and, after 2008-2010, where many got burned, and badly, they are super cautious.

Again, the solution(s) may take months or even years to sort out.During the process of figuring out the cause(s) of the problem and the solution(s), you'll be paying a structural engineer (and potentially other pros like hydrologists, framing experts, foundation pros, etc.).

(I'm not sure how this will play out regarding the value of the home and only paying $160k.