As long as the property, or multiple properties, produce cash flow to carry the cost of the HELOC you can leverage all the equity if you choose.

I am a fellow real estate investor, but also run a visualization studio and we produce high quality renderings for all project types. 

Because we found out the home fell into this category (after our offer was accepted), and we were insistent that we wanted 2 income producing units, we began to solution for this issue. 

In other words, the opportunity zones are a great way to shelter income, but not so great for actually producing capital.

Commercial properties are valued on the income they produce.

This will show you which agents are producing the most sales.

And with the rent estimate set to 1k, it actually produces very thin or potentially negative cash flow with 80% LTV as @Christina Carey kindly pointed out.Any other Dayton areas you'd recommend for OOS buy-and-hold investors to look into ?

I am very diligent about saving money and found real estate as an avenue for investment that could produce a passive income if I played my cards right.

You're investing in an area that produces tremendous cashflow, however there is risk associated with that and some of it is what your experiencing right now but the good will outweigh the bad if you're going to truly buy and hold.

It is far better to pay for something that will actually produce a immediate income as opposed to being a money pit.