I know other insurance agents that work in more local style agencies (all of their clients are local to them, where as my agency is nationwide and I work exclusively with clients that are real estate investors, just the Niche where we ended up)  but the local guys offer umbrellas to everyone, and the pitch goes something like this.Hey there Mr. or Mrs.

Data aggregators like Corelogic know the estimated market value of the house and the mortgage debt outstanding.

@Tarica Davis I work for a nationwide lender but located in Rochester.

I definitely don’t doubt any of that for a second.Wen you pull back to nation wide view though East looks good and we won’t have FL to drag down this time like 08.

Things like tax liens, possible issues with liens for things like lawn maintenance or code violations, and if there are anything outstanding with the sellers that needs to be paid (think judgements or IRS tax liens). 

Beg your hard money lender will take second position on the outstanding balance.

Both are in outstanding condition and everything is currently going great with tenants, etc.

Now, I'm sitting on $30K in personal credit card debt, a loan from a family member for another roughly $40K, plus an outstanding $4K in invoices from contractors.

@sosina  1) if the home you are considering tapping equity on is your primary - yes - its a very wise  source  of  funds for  future down payment ...a heloc rate will likely be in the  7-10%  range and your payment will be  based on the  outstanding balance  and  will be interest only  ...most heloc lenders  will  go up to a 80- 85% combined loan to  value  for the heloc amount  calculation   2)  if the  property you want to tap into is a rental - you will likely have a  challenge finding a heloc  lender  3)  on the new  MF  rental property you plan to buy in the future - most lenders  will require a  25%  down payment  4) if your plans are  sereoius about buying - get  fully pre approved asap

I am loyal to my one, so I do not have too much knowledge on nationwide-based HML, but if I were starting out new and had to earn trust, I would actually use a credit union and see what products they have for distressed properties.