How much do you want to stay in the bank when you purchase (consider you will need 15k still in there for reserves on any purchase)?

A Heloc can never be used as a PITI reserve, or an asset instead its a debt burden and an additional trade line on credit.A Heloc carries a higher risk when it comes to security meaning if you miss a payment even by mistake or for any reason, your scores drop, or your balances start to change your DTI or usage percentage.

I was looking to flip a few properties first in order to build up a little stack of reserves before starting to purchase for rentals.

A hard money loan with 10-15% down may also allow you to keep the Atlanta property, if you have the reserves to do it.

The fact of the matter is you mitigate that risk by doing what the folks above already told you....you bring money to the table and you have money in reserves if things go bad. 

When you don't have money for a downpayment, you should not be trying to buy a home because no matter how you do it, you will be overleveraged and have no reserves for repairs, etc.

This is a new underwriting guideline of the insurance companies because they haven’t been profitable and must raise the rates and lower the risk factors in order to comply with state regulations on adequate reserves and future solvency.  

I'm covering the leverage and have reserves in place for any capex expenses.

House 1 you’ve owned for 9 years, how are your cash reserves?

Can you show reserves factoring the DP and closing costs?