I live in Bay Area and am interested in NC (triad region) for buy-and-hold (rental) because that's where my extended family resides and Bay Area is too expensive to make numbers work out for me. 

Finding residents is a completely different process as compared to a typical rental property (assuming you are operating legally).

I purchased my first house as my primary residence in 2011 for 107,000.

We are selling our primary residence and purchasing a new primary residence. 

I would drive through different neighborhoods on my way to work compiling a list of distressed properties that I intended to try and track down the owners and while I was doing that someone contacted me with a house that they wanted to sell.The property needs roughly 15 - 20k in repairs but once done the property should have about 50k in equity.I am trying a mix between the house hack and the brrrr on this one.I am purchasing the property as a primary residence and will live in it as I make the repairs.

Hey BPers,I'm in need of some solid advice/guidance in my situation.I currently have a SFR primary residence in which I rent out two of the rooms.

I do agree with Scott as I live in West Bend and my 2018 tax assessment was 15% higher than 2017 for my personal residence!

Might as well reside it 

This is very certainly the case to buy as a rental; however, when transitioning from a primary residence to a rental it can sometimes change.That being said, I completely agree that you need to sell this property.

Are you asking about getting a HELOC on your primary residence to use to buy a rental property?