After attending one BP webinar and reading "Ultimate Beginner's Guide To Real Estate Investing," I immediately discovered my enthusiasm focus all of my attention on real estate investing...it's right up there with my love for playing Drums, and Coffee (smile).

Interesting, you're the first person i've seen mention that as a possible source (i'm a novice, so i know there's TONS of stuff i've yet to learn and discover).  

Sounds like they are really good tenants - because they called you and it wasn't something you all "discovered" at move out. 

That's when we found out copper pipes were stolen out of basement, drains to bathroom installed incorrectly not allowing water to drain properly, boiler (gas furnace) was shot, and electrical appeared new in basement however knob and tube was discovered in the ceiling.  

They don't really know what to do or think, but somehow they trust a lot of people mainly because the bad education had been propagated by a lot of people who already spent their money but had not yet discovered that the education really isn't working.

Now, how much loan balance remains on the OP's first mortgage is definitely not going to be 190K as the OP posted - 14 months into a 30 year loan, hardly any of the loan balance has been paid down since interest is the biggest payment component in the earliest years; somebody else posted a more correct loan balance of more like 201K and that is what I will use here.  

I'd considered refinancing (but not for equity release) last year anyway since I knew my rate would be increasing but never got around to it, that was also way before I'd discovered the concept of financial independence and RE investing.So with all this in mind, should, or could I... refi my primary residence mortgage and use this equity as cash towards a rental investment Multifamily??

When I did discover postlets, I quit putting signs in my front lawns, and had tenants sign contracts sight unseen, from half the US away.  

Andy, Are you saying the water is charged to the tenants as a component of their rent?

They are supposed to discover these types of issues.