However, if you are eager to expand, then tapping into some of the equity in your first home through a low leverage cash out is how I would attack this if I was in your position.

Hi Patrick, I agree with all pf your observations and respectfully add a few suggestions for those newbies who are reading your post and having a heart attack.

As far as I can tell, those are your options here...might as well attack them all, right?

A wholesalers plan of attack if buying REO's.

Poor Dad had 3 heart attacks in 7 years no doubt due to the stress of those properties.

My approach has been to eliminate the bad debt, credit cards were first and now I'm attacking the the car loan, while also raising my assets evenly between 401K, cash reserves, home equity, and a personal investment portfolio so that I have a solid spread of holdings.

Reason being is this protects you from both the inside and outside attack. 

@Davidson Francois There are a number of benefits to establishing an LLC in real estate:1) It will protect your personal assets from attack when you are doing business.

My purpose is to reduce the fear associated with an out-of-control legal system set up on extracting assets through Legal Extortion Rackets by protecting your wealth from such attacks, while leaving you with both control and beneficial use of your assets.

They started making "legal" threats and personal attacks once I got to the point of making moves other than polite requests that they could not just ignore to force the issue.