My retirement plan is no good. Looking for advice on 2nd plan.

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After being retired for almost a year ago, I realized that my original post-retirement plan was no good. I would have to sell one of my two properties to reduce my living expenses and that is not what I wanted to do today. I am in love with both of my two properties and even though my primary mortgage is paid off, my second home mortgage is too much to handle on a fix income. So I wanted to run my new plan with you guys for keeping both of my properties and maybe become a new rental property investor.

Watching Magnum PI guy talking about reverse mortgages on TV, it occurred to me to get a reverse mortgage on my primary residence. My original instinct was to use that money to pay off my second mortgage but then I heard of a first lean HELOC to replace my second house mortgage and in addition as well getting a reverse mortgage on my primary residence and use that money for investing in rental properties. On the HELOC, I was planning to use it like a checking account. I was reading and on youtube, you can pay the mortgage by depositing all the retirement money and then take out as needed for regular expenses. Also, I would have an additional $100K in equity which could be used as a rainy day reserve or additional investment.

I already applied for the reverse mortgage and looks like I qualified for a lesser amount because my wife's age. I will get about $360K broken down into two year payments. Now on the HELOC, I am having some resistance. Chase Bank wants to see $100K deposited somewhere except on a retirement account. Also I am looking at a Credit Union for the HELOC but I guess now days everywhere is a slow process and I have no results yet.

I am going into a new field in investment so I am afraid in getting into a bad deal or making a stupid mistake. I am aiming at single family houses and as long as I get $500 (after all expenses) extra per house, I hope that should be fine.

Your suggestions would be highly appreciated.