Many of the investors I know have dialed back on their private equity investment or have changed to doing debt instead of equity so it was not prime time.

You have used home equity lines of credit to purchase investment rentals and want to know the best way to pay down the HELOCs.Between the two properties you bought, after expenses, you have $250 a month positive cashflow to use.What I like to do is pay down some principal every month with my positive cashflow.I use my extra active income from real estate commissions helping other investors to pay down the principal even more which just frees up that credit for me to use again.I know I can refinance the HELOC debt before it changes to principal and interest as it is just interest only payments as yours are.One difference is the cashflow, I have greater positive cashflow and could make the principal and interest payment in the future with the extra cashflow I already enjoy.I always get HELOCs on my income properties as well after purchasing them to pull out as much of my downpayment as possible.

Combine that with insurance raising rates not just for dropping licensee count, but also to cover increased lawsuit risks.

We have tried multiple local collection agencies, and we have not received a penny for over a hundred thousand dollars of bad debt submitted to them.We keep hearing, "It takes time" but it's been well over a year with the most recent one.

Then, just three weeks before closing, my largest commercial tenant—who brought in as much monthly revenue as all 25 mobile home tenants combined—announced they were moving to a location closer to their main office.

Or buy and force appreciation or buy and paydown debt with cash flow..

Reflecting on the last 20+ yrs, when we could cash flow immediately with low cost sfr, had we gone with the higher priced properties and significantly lower cash flow, more debt, we could not have achieved IRRs even close to what the lower end product has delivered, nor paid off the investments. 

Debt will get paid down, rents historically will go up, and values historically will appreciate. 

So for example I'm very conservative and don't want any debt on them because I feel this hardens them in case of a severe recession.

I've calculated the lump sum costs to be $9,500 for buy and sell combined and a monthly reduction in cashflow of $347 due to the new loan and taxes.