If the buyers feel like they should get more money, they can do one of three things:1) re-negotiate with you to amend your original contract2) walk away from the closing table and refuse to sign (basically bringing the deal to a halt)3) suck it up and sign.I can't imagine a closing attorney would hold money back for any reason, unless he had it in writing and signatures from both parties that money was to be held back... that seems beyond me. 

I am a former loan officer , but currently working in the food and beverage industry, I have read about the topic for the past three months.

Loans trade in one of three manners:  (1) Par = 100% of Unpaid Principal Balance ("UPB"); (2) Premium = more than 100% of UPB and (3) Discount = less than 100% of UPB.  

@Jason Steiner if I had to do it all over again I would have maximized my conventional loans by purchasing nothing but fourplexes for my first three investment properties.

If it's truly 3 distinct SFRs and you want to use Fannie/Freddie financing, it'll be 3 contracts, 3 escrows, 3 mortgages for $40k each, 3 sets of closing costs, etc.That being said, with loan amounts this small, I'm guessing that commercial or hard money financing might just be better if you can find someone to blanket loan on all three at once just for the sake of 1 set of closing costs.Using fannie/freddie financing on loan amounts that small, the closing costs start to become a ridiculous % of the loan amount.

If I understand, you bought three properties cash, you want to do a cash out refinance on those properties to pull the equity out to buy more property.

This is especially important if the funds from the equity or future cash-flow are vital to your retirement lifestyle (everyday expenses or emergency money).I can only think of three other options I would consider with pros and cons:1.)

My goal is to acquire five properties in the next five years. 

If it's a decent sized multifamily and if you haven't raised the rent 50% in the past three years, but basically maintained them then I would probably use some equity to buy another well cash flowing property.

Every three or six months there's magically a seasoned 25% down plus needed PITI reserves, ready for the next purchase, sitting in a plain old boring Wells Fargo checking account without a lot of activity on those two months of bank statements I ask for.They write offers that end in 888, or want me to tweak their loan amount down so the base loan amount is $XXX,888.