I tried to hire a lawyer but I could not afford cost of litigation, on top of losing 200k.Scamsters like these give bad name to RE industry and keep people like me away from investing in it.

I would look into more south OC in Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, and Aliso Viejo with pretty amazing schools still but with slightly more affordable rents.

They have no idea what you can or can't afford and until you get pre-approved you probably don't either. 

Hey there My 5cents , just pay more every month, it’s the simplest way ,paying a 30yr in 5y just means your paying all the principle (as extra payments) in a short amount of time , I would suggest not using a heloc to do so just make extra payments as much as you can reasonably afford and you’ll be fine,  hope this helps

As interest rates decrease, people have more purchasing power and the ability to afford more.

My Opinion:As the yield curve flattens it is an indication that the cost of money is going to be higher.Based on mortgage statistics that the median new mortgage has an LTV of 95%, people are still leveraging their homes quite a bit.In order for the real estate and financing markets not to go stagnant they will need to come up with increasingly ‘creative’ ways to finance houses with average home prices that continue to climb otherwise home buyers will no longer be able to afford purchasing houses.While all of the indicators don’t look exactly how they did in 2007 it is quite scary to see that many of them are quite similar.Just my two cents.

Worst case on maximizing cash flow is you miss out on a few deals but the flip side is leverage maximizes your losses in the downturn if you cannot afford to service the debt load.

One thing that I would also consider is the leverage a cash offer can afford you if you were to use your HELOC.

That makes me want to micro-manage, but I also don't want to get them so frustrated with me that it causes more problems. 

If I were to try to keep the same tenants, shouldn’t I check first if they can afford the higher rent (i.e., monthly income at 3x rent) or just market the units to the public and rent out to whomever can afford it best?