A hurricane could wipe them out, that's way too risky for me, but to each their own... 

People hear about it and it sometimes gives international investing a bad wrap, even though it can be way less risky than people think. 

With the exception of risky homeowners where the entire household of income earners lost their jobs, and can't get work before the no-foreclosure policies expire, most will have an opportunity to restructure mortgages.

It's a bit risky, and I don't love the idea of having rentals secured by primary but this was about the only way I could see to break into this market. 

My understanding is that lenders are wary because so many people are losing their jobs due to Covid, and there is a large spread between standard loans and cash out since the latter are considered more risky.  

@Charlesa F. you can enter the address here for flood risk https://msc.fema.gov/portal/homeIf it is in the blue, or blue and red striped areas, that is something I'd almost always avoid, some of the other areas are a bit less risky but it is likely to still have an insurance impact. 

Also, considering where we are in the real estate cycle, buying something at the peak simply for appreciation can be a risky proposition.

Different asset classes will offer different mixes of these: flipping has great returns but uses a lot of time, stocks have excellent liquidity and decent returns but are fairly risky, passive investing in multifamily syndications, which is what I do, has a great return on time and very good risk adjusted returns but very poor liquidity, whereas investments in new construction have phenomenal returns, and low involvement but are risky and illiquid.

Is HELOC more risky than cash out refinance since you use your home as collateral?

This would be controversial and therefore potentially subject to an IRS challenge which you could win or lose, but if this happened to one of my clients and the client felt good about taking some risk, I would pursue this route.