Med students are usually pretty responsible, and you know they can pay with their student loans.

I guess I'll start by sharing a bit of myself and how I got here.A few years ago, I saw a listing for a 4 plex in a nice part of a city in the CA Bay Area and thought, that would be so great if I could live there and collect rent to help pay off the mortgage (it was even listed for a reasonable price, though I'm sure there was a bidding war for the final sales price).

If you don't mind saying, what did you pay to do the gas and electric meters? 

If I got a Heloc, once the property is built, could I get a traditional mortgage and pay off the heloc and then tap into the new equity as well?

The previous owner was paying $3k a year with DB. 

There will be some giant surprises to many there when you have to start paying engineers for frequent evaluations and making the structural repairs required.   

In New Jersey, the tenants pay the realtor fee so you aren't out of pocket on that.

I'd just reconsider the economics and pay someone to do some really good underwriting and if you don't understand zoning I'd get a zoning attorney. we self perform all of our own zoning 

It's a bummer that I can't even pay for it!

You'll pay a bit more in points/fees but if the deal works, they can get it done.