They're good to have open access to capital/cash/equity to a property ahead of time so you can execute a deal or purchase when the time comes on a split second decision (versus having to apply to a loan at that time which might take 20-45 days to get approved/closed/etc plus by that time you dont know what your future income/credit/assets will be like in order to qualify anyway).The second use is sleep at night factor and having a reserve of capital in the event an emergency event occurs in life.For these two reasons is why I use lines of credit.

Would be interesting to hear experiences others have had..The expectation for rent being used to help build credit has slowly grown over the years.

Not sure if these are all investment properties or if you're including a primary or second home, but my suggestion would be a cash out refi of an investment property to pay off your debt, and a line of credit on your primary to have available for reserves if needed.

To do well, build a strong money base, keep a good credit score, and look at other loan types besides FHA.

But by putting the properties into the business name you can avoid having the debt reported to personal credit so long as the funding lenders servicing company allows for it.

Maybe paying off credit card debt or other debt on your report to reduce the minimum payments, increasing the downpayment, finding a house that doesnt require HOA or flood insurance (if applicable), etc.

I suspect the builder has crappy credit and can't get approved on their own.Also, as a former banker myself, local banks aren't generally interested in financing new construction on this size of project or a builder that doesn't have extensive experience in these type of builds, in my opinion. 

The bank will want you to be working for a certain amount of time and that have certain credit score plus have your financial ratios match what they want. 

When I look for my next property, I work on cleaning up credit, so my scores are as good as I can get them.  

We're wondering about various what-if's though, such as what if the people tear up the place, what if we don't want to rent to someone in particular due to references or credit or pets, etc.