:I'm sorry but my wife has a lot of say in things but my say is final.Just the opposite in my household.

I grew up in household where my father owned 4 rentals, but quickly realized that could of been ran much better.

Here is what the following charts show as our current situation.50% of households now received at least one federal check monthly.Nearly half pays zero income tax (yes, I'm aware they pay other taxes but so does the other half already).50 years ago the annual federal transfers was equal to 24 billion in today's dollars – in 2010 that number had risen to $2.2 trillion in transfer of money, goods, and services, which was nearly a 100 fold increase AFTER adjusting for inflation!

Also should mention that almost none of the reputable brokers will not collect any fee at all unless a loan is successfully placed, and that is collected at closing. many of the household name life insurance companies will only lend on the higher quality assets owned by the top sponsors, but there are a number of lesser known companies who will do smaller and more traditional deals.  

However, I am start a contracting position in two weeks to help out with my household income.

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.