I have a lot of free time in my new job and I want to get more into the real estate business, so any recommendations on what steps I should take now to get more involved in it.

Despite the extremely low LTV ratio, multiple bankers I have spoken with, keep telling me that home equity lines of credit can only be levied against a primary residence, and not against an investment property, or portfolio.

NO AGENT FEES INVOLVED.

Over the years i have been extremely passive with the business and never took the time to really learn how to property invest in real estate, i just assumed i was doing things correctly, i didn't know how to do the numbers, just went with the flow.Since im down to 5 rentals and i made a very small amount of money selling off the negative cash flow rentals that just never recovered from the market crash in those 2 areas, since i bought to high in the peak of the market prior to the crash. i decided to apply for a mortgage to purchase another rental in my local area using some of the new knowledge i have learned recently, but after applying for multiple mortgages most of the places i applied basically said no, that cash flow to money lent to me is in a risky zone, basically i own properties that were not bought with rental numbers in mind, so turning them into rentals they barely cashflow except for my very last property i purchased that i did basically a flip on, that left lots of room between the mortgage payment and rental rates in the area.

Funny, seems like this thread just keeps breeding house-hacking interested ME's, as I am one as well, I've been listening to the past BP podcasts after my brother turned me onto them, and now trying to get involved in other ways to continue moving forward. 

Ive been wanting to get involved in real estate but funding has kept me stuck.

I was more or less thinking about it as providing a one up to competitors, but did not think about the risk involved!

ONLY do business when your starting out with reputable HML and one who is local who you can walk and in and talk to them in person.there are bigger players that are in multiple states. but NO one is in all 50.. these include.LendinghomeLendingoneLima oneVisio GensisAnchor Aloha Conventus and on and on and on.. there are plenty of legit lenders out there. 

As you pointed out the prior 1031 is complete and not affected or involved.

Well how involved do you want to be?