I was imagining ripping the newly install carpet and then gently pulling up the maple floor.

One way that I have determined volatility in the rental market is to pull up the local property manager's websites and track property for a while.  

I would secure this primary residence on a comfortable 30 year fixed rate mortgage for around $450K, you can always secure an equity line later to pull out any needed cash...and that deal can stand on its own.

If anything, refinance it when you depart to pull your appreciation out then, to use for the acquisition of additional rental assets.  

After hours of searching documents and pulling credit reports, I couldn't find the address anywhere.

Or can I pull comps from just outside of the district?

I'm scared of going for an ARV appraisal this soon because I didn't pull permits for the interior work and in this county it may be big negative.I own a townhome that I've been wanting to unload but, currently cashflows so I haven't really done anything with it.Any ideas would be great.

@Alison Kovac If it would assess at 225k you should be able to cash out refi it after 6 months and pull at least 157k(being conservative and leaving 30%/67k in the property; you can probably do 20 or 25%) back out -- using the same 30% down on the smaller townhome means you pull out 97k(leaving 41k in the property) so your actual out of pocket cost difference between the two is only ~25k.

House hacked this so wasn't looking to refinance and increase my rate and have to put additional money down to pull out cash (started with 10% down).  

1 was a VA refinance to pull cash out of my residence that we had paid way down and had nice equity.