You should refinance your long term debt into a DSCR loan and then do a heloc on your property.

At that point, you potentially could refinance to just to grab more liquid cash out of those homes too.  

My strategy for getting started is to use a HELOC for my down payment and all other upfront cost and reserves, then refinance as soon as possible to get the fixed, lower, interest rate.

Plus to realize that appreciation it costs you money to sell, refinance, and potentially pay taxes on the gain. 

I could maybe sign up with that theory if the GPs were using the side hustle money as a way of cutting or eliminating their fees & salaries altogether while they try to hang in long enough to hope for enough rate cuts to refinance or the market to unfreeze and let them unload at least at break-even, but I bet none of them do anything of the kind. 

Our current portfolio looks like this:LTR that is worth 150k with 65k of debt left on it at 3.65% on a 20 year loan - PITI = $785 per month - long term tenants paying $1650 per monthLTR that is valued at 110k with 45k of debt left on a 4%, 20 year loan - PITI = $583 per month - long term tenants paying $1550 per monthSTR that is valued at $275k with 155k of debt left on a 3.5%, 30 year loan - PITI = 1080 per month - brings in over 35k per year gross for the last three years.Would you do a cash out refinance on one of the properties to pull out some of the equity to pay off the $48k HELOC or would you sell one of the LTR properties to pay off the HELOC?

They also have terms about release of properties for sale or refinance that are not favorable to the investor.

You don't need to know everything to get started; you need a foundation to build on, and the rest will come through experience and then refining your education.You can build a basic understanding of investing in 3-6 months.

Otherwise, you will need to do a no ratio DSCR loan, which will allow you to purchase or refinance at 75% LTV however the rate will be pretty high. 

I'd compare the blended rate with how much you could get with a refinance otherwise and tell you whether it's a better idea to go with a full refinance or the HELOC route.Feel free to PM me if you don't want to share this information on the public forum.