Depending on what other opportunities you have to invest that equity, your best bet may be to sell and use the money to invest in another asset or another area that has better CF numbers.

I'd be willing to bet that apartments are emerging there because it's getting to be too expensive to buy a home there.

I am renting it out for $800 per month.Now my real question.Is my best bet to get another rental the beginning of next year to refinance this house (hopefully at a much lower interest rate) for $10-15,000 more than I owe (if possible) and use that money plus money I have in savings to put down on a new property?

I bet I'll be making use of that a bit in the next few months as I put together a property management team, etc.

Ultimately word of mouth will be your best bet.

Light to light-medium earth tones is a good bet.

@Dylan Grieve On my probate letters I use the same exact letter I use with my high equity owners- saying essentially: I want to buy your house and here's why you might benefit from selling to an investor.I think if the letter tries to sympathize you may end up offending people because they may perceive the sympathy as insincere and that you really just 'want' something from them.I prefer my probate letters to seem more coincidental- they're going through inheriting a house and 'just so happen' to get a letter about selling the house.All that said, the best bet with any direct marketing is to test because you won't know until you try it.

To this day if I don't get a reply from an e-mail I send to him in a few minutes, I know he is tied up, and I will probable get a response a 2-3AM from him,,he lives for work (and the sports franchise he owns)

Hey Jerald,Since these are not through a Realtor your best bet would have been doing an "option contract" especially since you didn't have any buyers lined up.  

Given your exit strategy you probably didn't select the right loan up front, but having long money is always a good bet in my opinion.