She rehabbed all four to the max with an ARV of over 10 times her household income!

Then follow through, firmly but fairly with ALL tenants.You will have to judge your credit requirements partly on your current market if it is REALLY bad, but typically I require 3X rent for gross household income; some sign of stable, verifiable employment (or significant savings); no recent, or more than 3 MINOR credit derogs.

We had 12 rentals at the time and I felt that the combination was enough for my contribution to the household.

You will use this percentage to figure and multiply it by the following household expenses: maintenance, interest, property taxes, insurance, and utilities.

That's about as much leverage as I want anyway.As far as HELOC's go, I'm assuming that most people want to lock up long term fixed rate loans, not have a ton of floating rate debt at whatever point the worlds' lenders ascertain that the future US govt cash flows available to somehow repay the spiraling debt and unfunded liabilities (a mere $100T or $1M per household), are woefully and absurdly inadequate.

Interest rates have some effect or influence, but there are a number of other factors (unemployment, economic outlook, population growth, household creation/consolidation, consumer confidence, tax codes, etc.) that are more powerful in determining housing prices.

I annualize my expected income and add in a 8-12% vacancy rate (average for US households).

Our household income is between $160k - $175k annually and our credit is good.

.*)CONSUMER LOANS DEFINED: Loans to consumers (natural persons) that are for personal, family or household use.* NMLS does not require that an originator have an NMLS endorsement to originate NON-CONSUMER loans secured by a 1-4 family residence.

After that, I transfer an amount to my joint checking for household bills.