HELOC is usually a good option for something short term, you, don't really want to buy a long term rental property on a HELOC.

As others have stated, your fit & finish goals should be guided by whether you plan to:1) Rent: tenants don't always take care of a property, so you want to use lower-grade materials and workmanship.2) Flip: higher quality on workmanship and materials is usually required.Regardless, you always want to "Maintain to the Neighborhood".

Investment Info:Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

I actually got caught up in the creative finance bubble of trying to lock up properties way over their value just because it had creative terms not realizing that if you were to buy a property at 120% of its value you will never be able to refi or sell without paying out of pocket.

Selling one and buying several is fine. 

While I am normally in the do-not-sell camp, in this case it might just sell and buy at the new location.

Just one example of a market getting overheated and then right-sizing.Same is going on with syndications, STRs and soon LTRs.BP took off after the Great Recession when investors could buy almost anything and rent it out for positve cashflow.

Any general advice is much appreciated.50k is more than enough money, the biggest question at 22 is are you ready to buy a property and be kind of locked in for 3-5 years.

My understanding is an E2 Visa is an investor Visa (ie. you need to buy a business) OR you can piggyback off an existing E2 holder. 

Our team buys the properties and converts them and manages them so it has been a great learning experience seeing all three phases from taking down a project, renovating the building then managing the lease up.