But it sounds like you should also balance your decision on what fits you and your families preference and style since you will be using it personally. 2.

We will shop for used appliances where we can when we need one… or pick up used cabinets if we can, or search eBay for something smaller,  but going to the extreme of personally shipping something big in internationally for one-off renovation needs seems like a stretch of reasonable.Just like you mention, the number of unknowns would not seem to be worth it to me.Just my 2 cents.Randy  

The market still has relatively low entry points compared to other major cities, making it possible to find multifamily properties like duplexes and triplexes in the price range you’re targeting.

Hi All,Newbie here, just a quick question we are building an addition on our second home, we have a primary residence, and two rental properties. We are trying to not use our retirement funds. Are there any strategies...

Obviously every situation is unique it's on you to check with your intermediary and lender to determine what price range would be realistic to start looking for deals in before it closes so you are ready to roll. 

If you are vetting large-scale multifamily or commercial, you can do a bit more on spreadsheets, but still it would not be relevant without knowing the potential cap ex. 

It’s better to have less rooms and to have them large enough to comfortably fit a queen bed.

HELOCs are fine, but keep in mind that you really only want to use 50 percent of less (each) of your available equity just so you aren't creating a problem that you can't solve later if the value of your personal residences fluctuates.If you both have W2 jobs though, have you looked into getting qualified together and just getting a loan, 10 percent down each?

However, properties ranging from $100k to $50M or more have benefited from cost segregation.

You can get solid cash-flowing single families in the 90-120k price range and duplexes in the 130-180k price range.