Welcome to BP Frank and best of luck investing!

That's one of the most common fallacies in real estate investing.

I'm a 100% committed student of the real estate industry.

With a bit of planning and good operations, one can easily manage 20 to 30 properties without an assistant, with less than a day or two a month.There's lots of automated ways to check on rent, make deposits (my tenants deposit directly into a bank account), receive maintenance requests, have maintenance done, etc., etc.One thing I could argue is to have your tenants ONLY email you, especially for maintenance requests, and that email goes directly to the vendor that you have set up to handle it.

@Ryan Rabbitt, never heard of them.

I would only use the heloc if you plan on cashout refinancing one of the properties to pay it off once the rehab is complete. 

@Nicole Shoaf - the fear part is some of the hardest aspects to get over.

Investment Info:Townhouse fix & flip investment. 109 W 132nd St, New York, NY 10027, is a meticulously renovated brownstone townhouse situated in the heart of Harlem.

When I floated the idea of buying it from them myself, they said they were open to it if that's what I wanted to do and gave me time to think about it.

The rental market demand is still extremely high and there are a lot of value add opportunities, you just have to be willing to put in the work.