Others may need to be creative, you just need to make sure you hit a simple savings rate and invest competently. i appreciate the advice. my plan is to be saving about 75k/year while I'm paying off student loans and then jump up to about 125-135k/yr once loans are paid off. since my most immediate term goal is to reach partial FI (have the FI to work part time) I see REI as a means via cash flow.the other complicating factor is I think the financial prospects for my field are quite bearish and anticipate a decline in salary in the long term due to: -decreased reimbursement from medicare, increase in PAs/NPs, and and significant increase in residency training programs which will create a surplus of Emergency Physicians -- all of this leads me to believe that if I want to maintain a high savings rate in the future I may have to work even more to get the same income I'm currently getting.

Re-fi's and Helocs are still out there today, but we know they could go poof! 

A very successful approach has been to leverage funds in this manner, and re-fi when LTV get's down around 45%-55%, roll the added capital into additional acquisitions much like reinvesting stock dividends.

Can't re-fi since I have no job.Since there is no mortgage, would they ever know that I sold it?

20% down, conventional mortgage with plans to re-fi after renovationsMany A-lenders didn't want to touch it because of the fire damage, but eventually found one that did.How did you add value to the deal?

I've never done a re-fi, even in my former investing days.

They are not a bank, but do cash out re fi 's for a piece of the equity in your home. 

Currently house hacking and planning on doing a re-fi in order to generate more cash flow when i convert to a rental in 2-3 years.

We're providing all utilities, including Wi-Fi, plus laundry.  

@Mike Rios I would say the cash out re-fi too.