A few month's ago the furnace had to be replaced, that would have brought my balance down lower than the mortgage amount (so I paid it on my personal card but kept receipt).

Im trying to purchase my first SFR rental in OKC. 20% down, <$135k, C Neighborhood, 3bed, Near Turnkey.Inventory is awful, as to be expected.Interest rates are slowly inching up with the Fed expected to raise rates in a few weeks timeMeanwhile inflation has been CHEWING away at my cash for half a year and continues to accelerate. 

Purchase price is $283K, I do believe I can raise rents a few hundred dollars if updating is done.

Option 1 raise the rent 3-5%.

They will "take deposit" for rent and leave the tenant with a $0 deposit balance or they raise/lower rent without using paperwork. 

I am actually in the process of a cash out refi right now with the second one, but with the money I am getting back (about 30k) I will be paying all my investors and then there is not much left for me to re invest unless i got back to raising money.Thanks for the help though, I hope you can buy your first property soon!

So far, no big changes for me.....sure prices of materials and supplies are creeping up, but I raised the rates of our STRs to more than compensate for that.

@Dom Zebrowski, as well as the issues raised by @Evan Polaski, I query whether for an Investment Loan you'd get as good a deal as 3.5%/y Interest over 30 years. 

Once your in it you can do some rehab work, raise rents and refi into a conventional mortgage so you can drop your PMI and still have very low housing expenses while building equity and keeping things moving.

I am trying to determine what my property would be worth if I raise rents and do some value adds.