I probably should have a larger deposit, but since I'm living here too, I just gamble at hoping that they won't damage much with us both living in the same house.

Do you really want I gamble on what a jury could rule?

It's a gamble but most stocks are gambles since we don't the "real" story of a company.

Having the time to do the things I really love to do in life like spending time with family and play sports.

But it is a gamble, and at the least you have something to get you around town!

High has more activities during the school year, sports will be earlier in the evening and the crowd is usually gone before most go to bed.

You are missing the most important thing you can buy yourself,an education.You need to meet with professional wholesalers who have been doing this successfully for some time and ask them how they do it.Apprentice yourself to them for free doing their ground pounding work learning the business as a young college student intern would.Learn how to put together a large list of cash buyers and flippers who need the properties you find to sell them.Learn how to carve out a good territory to farm that has several homes sold in the last two years for top dollar prices and sold the fastest (less than 30 days).Learn how to use postal workers,utilities people,and others to spot bad houses that might be able to be bought cheap.Use high school students involved in sports teams or band to seed your farm with cards and fliers door to door at every property and give them a tax deductible donation to their groups.Promise them a bigger wad of cash if you sell a house they bird dog for you(tax deduction!).

It is a mathematical fact that if you are buying a rental property in any city where the monthly mortgage payment exceeds monthly rental income, or where mortgage payments along with monthly expenses exceed monthly rent, if any of those scenario applies, a down payment would be only other material method to avoid a negative cash flow situation.You let the investor worry about his gamble on the market going up.. thats not your problem.

I would have started learning about investing in RE in college rather than gambling on stocks while taking notes.If I have the knowledge and drive back then I might have skipped a party to buy a house or two. 

NOTE that you are gambling that the Interest Rate will AVERAGE 6% for the HELOC.