Is anyone able to point me in the right direction on how to do this correctly and efficiently?

About half went into the down payment for the next house hack, correct with no HOA and used a little to upgrade some like adding central A/C.

(blah, blah, insert bleeding heart here, blah, blah....)CORRECTION: She's a HORRIBLE tenant!

She started out great but this last year has been hell trying to get correct rental income..constantly trying to get her to communicate with me etc. every month for the last year I ask why I’m not getting paid the balance in the ledger and she always says it’s because some of the funds are advanced rent payments that I won’t get till the next month…been going on awhile.

The best advice I can give, is create a bulletproof contract for yourself via a good lawyer if possible.Sounds like a viable deal if done correctly, but far less headache if they can just qualify on a conventional loan.

Tom is correct -  that lien is out there owned by someone.

I bought one of the houses they advertised as zero down and was a special case for Alabama (if I remember correctly).  

So you can't just get a pre-approval for all properties like in residential real estate, but a pre-approval for the exact property you are going to make an offer on (Is that correct)?

I believe it is because he wanted a quick answer from the community, you can't say that going to the CPA is easier than writing a thread in here Sure, but quick and correct are two different things.

So your friend is correct in that you can get a new HELOC to pay off the old one, but that doesn't mean the balance just magically disappears.