HI Alexa,Your concerns can be summed up to:1) will your income, credit, and assets (property value, reserves, equity) qualify at the time you apply for your refinance2) will the property appraise at the value you need during the time you order your appraisal to get out as much as you'd like out or payoff your current loan payoff (with out having to bring cash in to pay down your loan to the appropriate loan amount/ LTV)To negate the risk on #1 you can have a lender review your scenario upfront and plan for the anticipated new income/credit/assets 7 months down the line since things may be different then vs today.To negate the risk on #2 make sure you look down the line at the active inventory, pending inventory, days on market, and where the market is going as this will give you an indicator of the sold properties 6-7 months down the line.

Just remember: most negative reviews are written by problematic tenants.

But when i put in the numbers, the online calculator shows negative cash flow.

Plus, there's really no incentive for the landlord to say anything negative because they take on additional risk... for what?

It's very hard to take negative operating cost shots to the chin if they happen across a number of your properties.

My solution, as to not be a negative nancy (no offense to nancies), would be to handle it like an RV park, and then lease the operation to someone.

I have several units and it would be statistically low for all go vacant in 1 year. 1000- mortgage($730) -maintenance hold back (1000*.08= 80)- vacancy ((1/12 * 1000=83) = $107 remaining for CAPX and cash flow. 

The owners are retired and want to structure the deal to ensure that the amount paid to them is not in a lump sum, as this will negatively effect their reportable income and in turn increase their Medicare costs.

If it gets to that point it might be worth talking to a lawyer to include a disclosure not to pursue legal action or post negatively about you company on the internet as a condition of you both mutually ending the lease.  

Statistically once a home is broken into, it is more likely to get broken into again.