Repaying a HELOC

[David W.]

I am approaching my 1st rental property buy and of course trying to do all the homework. By the way BP.com is awesome. So rather than using my own cash or pulling money from stocks, I have been thinking about a HELOC. But when I do the math and add in the repayment of the HELOC as part of my monthly bill, my cash flow goes pretty low (around 140/month). The only way it seems worth it is to pay interest only on the HELOC, then my cash flow is around $261. But when the HELOC comes due, I would still be in the same situation. Granted, rent would go up over the course of 10 years but I imagine the interest on the HELOC would also.

So how can I repay a HELOC and not reduce my cash flow down to $140 bucks? Which seems not worth it.