Having one of the few very nice homes available for rent during a boom time seems to be playing in my favor. 

The East Bay Area address at the bottom of my preapproval/approval letter & my office's local reputation might play a role in that, or it might not, I really do not have a way to quantify that.

You're credit and debt to income ratio will also come into play.

She always had water available however, she liked to play an turn on the tap. 

So, are you looking to play the short game or the long game with this investment?

So this first deal was a rehab and rent play (it was carefully underwritten and I am glad I left some buffer in my underwriting model)Spend many weekend trips up there, and worked with a GC who is not bad, spend overall approximately $30K into the house.

you need to simply go to a HML and buy this thing first then re sell it.. trying to play the wholesale game could cost you the deal.. plenty of money in it to pay a little for a short term loan

Many trades work well with the trades before and after them, so if you find one sub that sounds legit that you want to work with, they can likely refer you to like minded subs that will do like quality work - who **most importantly will work well and play nice with other subs**. 

you may want to look for a limited representation broker.. there are many that do that... save you a bunch of money as well.. although I have found over the years letting buyers and sellers talk is not usually a good thing as emotion comes to play too much and the deals do not come together..

This refinance is with a private lender and as @Stephanie Potter mentioned my credit did play a factor, it recently came down a bit because of all the expenses :(  and they are only looking at my score to qualify me, and by the way I did contact your company but they could not help me, don't remember what was the reason though.This refinance or finance would be an adjustable rate loan after 5 years, and if I was to go this route I would probably refi again after 5 years.