In general I find that painting any group with a broad brush is counterproductive and a waste of time.

It is not static.

My approach from the start is it's a game of statics and I'm proving them all wrong now. 

Real Estate is not a static line on a chart across time, there has been SOOOoooo many "events", a few added ones; y2K, dot.com crash...... 

So when you start slinging a paint brush and/or swinging a hammer, you are working for free unless you pay yourself an hourly or per-the-job wage at market rates. 

@Thomas S.I'd caution to not broad brush certain things. 

Using a static financial calculation to determine what deals are worthwhile and which ones are not is invaluable practice...it's an acquired skill and you will figure it out, but its not an end-all.Your current option may be limited to reducing your ROI, redefining what you are investing in and why...and/or possibly exploring markets with lower price points...and as always, making efforts to source your own deals. 

These manly men fill the sink with hot water and rinse their beard out to soften the hair as much as they can before lathering up with shave cream using a bristle brush to push the beard-softening cream into the base of the hairs.

When you say build up a cash reserve for a future purchase, do you mean a strict savings account while the HELOC (down payment) principal stays static (10 years of interest only), or dump all cash flow back into the HELOC principal to allow me to use the HELOC again in the future to do a down payment on another property?

CCR is a static metric which assumes a certain cash return on investment.