I hate, HATE the idea of paying a flat fee regardless of performance.

Before I bought my first house (primary residence), I knew next to nothing about renovations and improvements.

My thought is it would be nice to take some cash out for any repairs as soon as I could perform a Quiet Title.

Greg it will depend on the portfolio of the bank and how many performing versus non - performing assets on the books.The bank might not want to refi that type of product with too much of that type of asset class non-performing on the books already.They might have too much defaulted commercial all together.For value add plays typically occupancy is an issue.The lenders will want certain occupancy levels obtained for at least 3 months depending on loan type and typically stabilized for 6 months to a year or longer.If you buy an apartment building at say 50% occupancy using a hard money lender or private money and the going vacancy rate is an average of 10% then the lender wants 90% occupancy averaged out over time.When you refi you will only be able to go up to a certain percentage to cash out or can just convert with no cash out to the lower interest rate.Regular banks do not lend usually on sub par occupancy levels for the area.They see it as too risky and the say 60% occupancy can quickly go to 30 or 40% and they have a foreclosure or short sale on their hands taking a loss,plus inspection reports,attorney fees,appraisal and environmental review etc.

One of his property (102 unit) is doing good, great property manager, 92% occupancy, no debt, after 7% improvement reserves, NOI is 178K.

depends what you're looking for..are you looking for performing turnkey properties?

The preference for CASH is that the deal can close quickly before the short sale approval expires and requires the entire process to be performed all over again.

I am willing to work with good tenants on getting the place in line and also look longterm at the improvement of the property.

House across the street from my personal residence is on sale and I can get a heck of a deal on it, I'm thinking about buying it and either sitting on it for a while until the market improves a bit around here or possibly rent it to a company that brings a lot of executives to our town, mostly on a temporary 12-24 months basis.

Again not the best area but an improvement over the West End and I think the street is up and coming.