Strategies for New Investors

[Pedro Magallanes]

Hey Everyone, 

My wife and I are currently getting ready to start looking at real estate investing. We live in Los Angeles county but buying anything here is crazy expensive and rent control limits any ability to profit anything. 

We are now looking at other areas like Detroit or Chicago where we can purchase something more affordable. 

The question I have is the following: 

We have around $200k ($100k cash/$100k heloc) to play around with. Would it be a best investment strategy to use the cash to finance a property over $100k or should we focus on properties we can buy with heloc, refinance and repeat given todays market?