But with the second home the $600 in extra rental income is enough to pay towards an equity loan.

The least states:"Tenant shall pay a "late charge" not in excess of five (5%) percent of the amount in arrears for each month the arrears remain unpaid if any Rent is paid more than ten (10) days after the due date thereof, to cover the extra expense involved in handling delinquent payments.

This would obviously reduce my cash flow on both properties, as I would be paying the minimum HELOC payment plus extra towards the principal to pay it off quickly.

You have the usual causes like drugs/alcohol problems, mental illness and then you have the working poor who remain homeless.

Some of this may have been grandfathered in, but now need updating.I would pay the extra say $50,000 to have an Engineer firm go over.

Then I mail a very simple handwritten letter and usually get north of a 30% response rate.  

It's all about risk in the event of a lawsuit, which can also usually be covered by insurance.- If you decide to have an LLC for each property, creating a Management LLC that all the other LLCs "hire" to run their books, will allow you to only require a bank accont for the Management LLC.2) You may not be able to do a Trust.

Early on in my career, I saw a close frend do something similar.. she borrowed from her circle to finance a rural fixer-upper, then paid them back once she refinanced after the rehab.I’m guessing that massive yard plus the barn is already a big selling point for your tenant, especially with a family that wants a little extra room for animals.

I think the big question is how badly do you want to keep the extra $50k liquid?

For me, I usually get about 90% of my money back.