The thought process is that if I like the deal today, I may love it a few years down the road where I can refi (whether I cash out or not) under better terms to reduce debt service.I'm sure this is the kind of thing I could spend a lot of time trying to build in Excel -- am wondering if anyone can direct me to an existing tool that might help with this.

I have a small amount of capital to invest with (25k), as well as excellent credit for financing purposes.

There is quite a bit to do and, while I am comfortable with Excel enough to make and use my own spreadsheet to manage this, I am curious what resources others use and what spreadsheets or templates you guys might be willing to share, Excel or otherwise, with me and the rest of the BP community.

@Junior Picanco excellent job and thanks for sharing.

Within Excel you can do: =IRR(cell range including total equity in the cell all the way to the left as a negative, followed by each of the year by year cash flows)

Expect to pay about $3600 or so on all the appraisals (assuming all are investment properties).If I remember correctly, you said you had excellent credit before, You may even have an option for all conventional financing with a bank who'll do more than the 4 financed properties.

You could use the one from Office Depot if you wanted to.I use state not only because I have to, but because it brings credibility of coming straight from the state website and having nothing that I added that skewed it in my favor.  

The idea with the meter is excellent!

Been with them over a year now and they've done an excellent job.  

To me, it seems like this would be an excellent 1-2 year crash course to learn the "nuts and bolts" of the industry for a variety of reasons.