The lifestyle of the Section 8 SFR LL just ain't your bag, as I'm sure you understand by now, Rob. 

Homemade candy, banana bread, and pumpkin bread go to the following:Tenants, Realtor, local bank where all the tellers and most of the office staff knows me, post office, mail men, UPS and FedEx drivers, cleaning lady and her son that do make readies, I will probably take some smaller candy bags to key people a Lowes that I deal with a lot. 

Private  lenders, are non-professional lenders ( your uncle, colleague, uncle money bags down the street)   They're just ordinary  people who want in on the real estate action but don't have the time to find and manage deals.

You need to decide if there's still more to be made or if you're about to be the guy holding the bag when the music ends.How do you plan to do sweat equity from several states away?

So it's not as tho you're  going to pack your bags while the ink is drying on the HELOC.

Once you buy the property it is officially under new management and you might have to get rid of some of his dirt bag tenants, as a worst case scenario.

I inherited a scum bag tenant that lived in the property for 17 years who destroyed the apartment with all his amazing handywork and stopped paying rent when i told him he couldnt use his apartment as a laundry mat.

Some even have a lovely landscape of broken trash bags.

Like you had a small bag of peanuts and the other kid had a candy bar you loved.

If you have the refi in the bag  then even using CC would work.. but make sure the refi is 100% you dont want to get stuck with worse rates than a HML would charge you.and yes 50k loans are very tough..