My perspective comes from a lot of personal experience, including a couple of properties I chose to hang on to for many years, because it would've been more expensive to dump them in the interim.

We have changed our language to state the the person renting must be at least 25 and MUST be present during the entire stay. 

Out of the three areas you mentioned, personally I would prefer Cincinnati in that list.

Maybe you use the cashflow to pay down the principal and then use your personal income and savings rate to grow the portfolio. 

If you haven’t educated yourself on general investment strategy, then I would say that you likely haven’t maximized your personal business either.

I work in and around the Osceola County, Florida area and I'd be more than happy to help out any person willing to learn about how they can grow a passive stream of income.

I anticipated a strong but stagnant year for growth (Typical Toledo, right?

Or steps  Never recommeneded if I was the GC as what if the person does not sell the home or it sells for less than what they owe the bank and the GC? 

If nothing is mentioned about it then I don't get them personally. 

In most cases, if you're trying to grow your portfolio, doing a cash out refinance without getting enough cash out to be able to reinvest to majorly help you with the down payment on your next deal is probably going to slow your growth and ability to scale.