Will have MLS access and already network with some good contractors.  

You need to incentivize them to mentor you or partner with you, either you work pro bono for them or bring something to the table of value.To your comment about "shady" or dishonest, I would encourage to you be as honest and forthcoming as possible, I don't know about you but I got into real estate because I wanted to do something meaningful, profitable for my family's benefit, I wanted to benefit from my level of effort rather than giving it to someone else, and most of all I wanted to make the world a better place by improving whatever it is I am working on; I want to be able to lay my head on the pillow at night knowing I did everything I could today to move forward in a positive direction and did so with integrity in order to prevent any form of regret. 

Sounds like there might be some things to learn from this experience and potential improvements to your screening process.  

Hi, I'm looking to access the equity of my 10 mortgage-free SFH rentalsI know that I can set up a HELOC for each home, but that will give me 10 different HELOC accounts to manage, which would be a PITAAre there any alternatives I should consider?

I was denied access to our HOA attorney for his guidance.

By then, you'll be more familiar with the whole accounting concepts, how to set it up and track it in Quicken, and the usually steep  learning curve for Quickbooks will be more accessible.

Oh, and access to the MLS too, I guess. 

I plan to hold the property for 5 years at the very least so I'm not opposed to making up-front investments that will help my return over time and of course improve my numbers to maximize a sale price when I decide to sell it.Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated!

If you want to try an advanced statistical technique to improve your chances of increasing your response rate, research Design of Experiments (DOE), which is a multivariate method of testing many factors simultaneously.

Usually, these are accessed for a monthly or yearly fee.