You may be better served fixing your credit rather than involving an equity partner at this early stage of your investing career.  

Even in the beginning of my investment career, when I was losing some money, I still loved every second of it. 

Did you find it difficult to obtain the HELOC?

Having money made thus paying for remodeling aspects is much better if I'm going to Hack this home for a labor deal with by master carpenter with 5 years left in his work career, and I can't get full market rent.  

Well it is difficult to vet "Deal Automator" without actually using it or seeing this software in action and it is certainly possible that everyone who has ever purchased this is 100% satisfied.So I attempted to track down say 6 or 7 of Cody's Testimonials from 2012 through 2015.

It’s also worth checking if there are any incentives, especially for first-time investors or through FHA (if house hacking).Final Thoughts:A 5% COC return isn’t the highest, but if you see potential for appreciation, rent growth, and forced value through renovations, this could be a good deal to launch your investing career.

Having been in many aspects of real estate throughout my career my favorites are ground up construction and note investing. right now note investing takes the cake as it can be done in any environment whereas ground up right now is very challenging. 

My real estate agent, who has a long prior career history in construction, seems to be happy with both the properties and has inspected them in detail and also been under the crawl space noting new plumbing, electrical and foundation sister-in-law beams too.As mentioned it is looking very likely the current buyer will not meet the closing deadline at which point I am next in line and have got price agreed with the back up after a few phone calls today. 

Another issue is transferring property management.If the new PMC doesn't have a Rhino account, it gets difficult.

Have a very tight screening process, like we do, and it will be difficult for these professional tenants to get in.