My wife and I are hoping to buy another single family home that is bigger sometime in the next year for our new family and potentially rent out our current home to tenants.

It is the Most Hazardous way to buy real estate and not quite as easy as you state. 

I'm a big fan of value-add opportunities, whether it's buying something currently undervalued & fixing it up to my standards, or buying something that has additional income opportunities that have yet to be incorporated. 

Quote from @Brian Schamp: Hey BP,I’m looking at buying in St.

The real estate investing industry uses "Classes" to rank property performance risk, but there's NO agreed upon industry model:(Here's what we use for our Metro Detroit market:Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

I know a great agent in the area who helped my friend buy in Ogden and did a great job negotiating.

I will have to buy turn key since I'm starting out.

Or should I just exhaust the heloc and keep buying houses? 

He claimed if he didn't get the money he could not buy supplies to complete the job, which would be done in a week(I knew this wasn't true). 

The biggest key to a good ROI is getting a good deal when you buy.