What do I get approval for first, the HELOC or Mortgage?

[Stephanie Younger]

I've been searching the blogs and cannot find the answer to this. We've just decided to get started with our first investment property and instead of tying up our cash, we're entertaining a HELOC on our primary home to fund a down payment on a conventional mortgage. We have our good paying day jobs to help pay this back if anything plans go south on the investment and after quite a bit of research this option sounds good to us. My question is which do you go for first... should I get pre-approval for the mortgage on the investment property or should I secure the HELOC before the mortgage pre-approval? I imagine that these should be done at different banks as well? Any advice will be greatly appreciated and please be easy on the RE terms... I'm a newbie here! Thanks!