The few times I called the office, they were always happy to spend time talking. 

No, taking out a HELOC and spending it does not reduce your taxable capital gain when selling your home.

That is dissapointing that they did not vet the people they would be spending hours and hours touring properties.

And not sure why he is spending big bucks going after you.  

This approach would allow me to learn with each deal and minimize initial risks.2️⃣ Go Straight to Multifamily: Instead of starting with SFHs, I could spend time learning the multifamily business and go directly for a 20+ unit building, maximizing scalability from the start.I have no experience with either strategy.If you were in my position, which strategy would you choose and why?

Say home improvement and they will send you up to $50k at relatively low rates with no pre-payment penalties and they do not check how you spend the funds.

You would spend far more on Marketing, background checks, tenant placement, repairs, and possibly legal fees with the eviction process.  

Acquiring clients - You need to spend money and a lot of it typically.

But at a $1.5M asking price, as long as you don't have to spend more than $300k in rehab (without raising rents), this is a slam dunk deal that should easily be financed  at 75% LTV by a "investment real estate-friendly" bank/credit union that is located fairly close to the properties.

In my case my bank asked for a few monthly checking account statements so they could see my spending habitsThe gift of giving- A few months back a co-worker was looking to purchase a home (not for investor purposes) and they received a "down payment as a gift" from a family member.