Most banks won't finance you unless you (or a partner) will live near the home and can have a pulse on the operations.

But the struggle is real right now…  It will be challenging to find banks that will lend with less than 20% down.

I have been poor very poor living off food banks and pawning items just to eat for a day and do it again.

Bank accounts, stocks, all assets. 

If you are taking about dropping a million cash into properties each year, then yes you are going to want to have some type of reasonable corporate structure, but if you're talking about 25% down 100 grand properties with bank notes, all you really need is some decent insurance.

She did babysitting, banked about $7,000, invested the $7,000 into a co-op in downtown Los Angeles with another Japanese girlfriend.

Make sure you have enough saved up not only for the down payment but also closing cost, plus some reserve in bank accounts or in other investment accounts!

Banks also won’t loan less than 50k on a home loan period.

The vast majority of "regular" or traditional (Conv/Govt) mortgages are originated by specialty lenders and brokers and are sold in the secondary market to provide yield on bank balance sheets (think Chase or BoA) or to be securitized into MBS.

Since HELOCs have a variable rate, you’re banking on rates staying the same or decreasing.