Grab a decent flat trowel for floating when needed.

Besides, it's easier to float mud without the sharp corners anyway.

Hope everything works out with you Tahoe rental and that you have enough reserves to float it for a couple of months.

Be realistic, but don't be paralyzed , be willing to learn and to UNlearn. read a lot of books about the subject that interest you most - flipping, wholesaling, birddogging, managing, buying/selling paper , auction or whatever floats your boat.

My goal is to start buying less expensive properties, where if they were ever vacant a few months in a row I can float the payment with my salary without having to worry..I'm curious where I stand vs. other investors when they started out. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you want to partner up, you need to float the whole construction cost plus financing/misc costs on a 500k project.

Here is my dilemma...do we just keep socking away cash and floating that 10K to no interest cards or pay it off and start from scratch with no cash reserves?  

Too good if you get my drift?

Lastly, most heloc's tend to roll into a home equity loan (20 yr amort) after 7 years and end up with a floating rate.To me, if you have less than 7 properties and you know you're going to use this money for another property, I would just do a simple conventional cash out refi on it.

And financing will be significantly harder.If you are wanting to drift anywhere, I'd go to Houston if I were you.