Depending on your interest rate your refi might actually help reduce your mortgage payment and increase cash flow. 

It is confusing to look at the Zillow website and it says a new kitchen costs 30k and increases your home value 26k.

And the trend has slowed down greatly since the 1990s, to a barely 1 percent yearly increase

They do increase the reserve requirements, of course.

You have negative cash flow (which is normal while House Hacking).To improve the deal you would need to have a lower purchase price and/or be able to increase rents.

Objective: I am really interested increasing my rental property portfolio reaching certain amount of cash flow.

Am I improperly estimating the expense and income increases that's affecting profitability?

In most part of US the last 6 years in every neighborhood home values increases 8-15% a year.

In my case, I want to keep properties in different parts of the country and have a good property management company to take care each of them (so less headache and more time to focus on increasing your RE Assets).

Also increasing coverage a lot does not cost much as the insurance company knows that suits above $1m are rare.