What changes at portfolio level once the recycle stops working?

Patience is most of the answer, and there's one piece of structure worth getting right while you wait.

The mechanism you're describing is real. Cash-out loan sizing is capped by LTV and then capped again by rent coverage, and at higher rates the coverage test binds first, so proceeds come back light and the difference stays in the house as equity you can't spend. Nothing about your underwriting fixes that. It's the price of the rate environment.

Where you have a lever is the exit from each loan. If you refinance again later at a lower rate, you'll pay closing costs a second time, roughly 2 to 3 percent of the balance, plus whatever prepayment penalty your current notes carry. Pull the prepay schedules on all three and write down when each one goes to zero. That calendar tells you which property is actually available to re-cash-out if rates ease and which one isn't, and it may well reorder your plan. Confirm the terms with each lender in writing rather than from memory of the closing.

The other adjustment is on acquisition rather than refinance. Buying deeper, meaning a wider gap between all-in cost and finished value, is the only input still under your control, and expanding distressed inventory helps you there. If a house comes in at 62 percent of ARV all in instead of 82, a 70 percent cash-out returns your capital even at current rates. That's harder sourcing work, not a financing trick.

One risk you haven't named: all three loans sit with lenders whose overlays can tighten. Coverage minimums and cash-out LTV caps get revised, and a portfolio built around one lender's program can lose its refinance path without any change in rates. Spreading the next one to a second lender costs you nothing now.