HELOC / Home equity loan to purchase a property?

[Jeremy Clarke]

Hello BP community! This is my very first post. I signed up for this website about 20 minutes ago. I'm looking for a little advice. I'd like to start out and explain my situation. I do not consider myself and expert in the housing market. I know enough to have an intellectual conversation but maybe not enough to be dangerous just yet. That said, I own two properties. 1 of which I live in and the other of which I rent out. My LTV on my properties are pretty low. Currently I have about %20 LTV in the place I live that I just bought and the rental about %66. Total cash amount would be about $120k-150k in total for both properties. I have been thinking about purchasing a true investment property in a destination location (beach or mountains). Two reasons. One, selfishly so that I can visit it whenever I want! But secondly, because the markup to rent out vacation places are much higher. So the idea is that I could make a higher yield on the vacation rental. Since I don't have enough cash on hand to buy a 3rd place I've considered taking out either a HELOC or a home equity loan to fund the down payment. My question is, is that a good investment or a poor decision? Obviously my goal would be to make positive cash flow (40%-%50). Looking forward to any advice!