Cash on hand or HELOC to start investing?

[Corey Miller]

So, I kind of got a slow start into the whole personal finance game. About 6 months ago, I finally decided that I was going to start budgeting. My end goal being debt free. As of right now, I’m on track to have everything paid off except for my home by around February. I have made about every mistake you can make financially, but I’ve learned those tough lessons along the way. I have started scouting out properties, ran numbers on a bunch of houses, and even went to look at a couple. I am looking at doing multi family home investing.

I currently have a $40,000 HELOC on the home I currently live in. I don't have a whole lot of cash on hand because I have been working on paying off my debts. So I guess the real question is, should I use my HELOC to invest in my first multi family rental? Or should I wait until I have enough cash on hand for a down payment and try to use my HELOC more towards renovations to the unit or using it as a safety net? I realize with the HELOC, the returns won't be as good because of the interest, but at the same time, I always hear it's better to invest sooner rather than later. My gut tells me to wait until I have the cash on hand for the down payment, but I'm very ambitious. I enjoy running the numbers and looking at places, I don't wanna say that I have analysis paralysis, I just don't want to start off on the wrong foot like I did early in my career.