I refuse to deal with rat hole houses in rat hole areas....you typically get rat hole tenants in those areas!

About $5k is typical for closing costs in my area.

The advantage to the HELOC is that the closing costs are way less, but typically they don't have a fixed rate and the amortization schedule is a lot shorter.

@Paul Wakim I agree that LinkedIn is probably not the best place to place ads because the CPL (cost per lead) is typically $9 for a very well-targeted campaign, whereas Facebook can be pennies on the dollar. 

Is this typical?

Yes, but you typically need to season for 6 months unless you get lucky and find a portfolio lender or if you decide to go commerical.

There are a lot of different ways to make that happen and that typically boils down to what you are most comfortable with and feel like is most effective for you.

I know a bank typically asks you if the property has been rented for more than two years to treat it as an investment.

Typically, with a chunk payment of $10,000 or more on a loan, a bank will re-amortize your payments based on the # of months you have left to pay, and let you keep the same interest rate!

(Sounds like he did not adhere to that - this may be his only fault in this case.)Did the original contract state that any changes/extensions/etc would need to be in writing?