All things being equal, I like the idea of buying a personal residence, fix up anything you'd like on the property and refinance and pull money out for your next property. 

IF you pull a HELOC on your primary and use it to buy jet skis and a vacation it's not deductible. 

When you pull out equity, to invest the cash, it has a snowball effect.

Think of it as your IRA buying stocks, but in this instance your IRA buys real propertyYou can't combine your 457, which is pre-tax, with your Roth IRA, which is post-taxJust like with any other retirement account you will be taxed at the time of distribution on tax-deferred accounts, or pull distributions tax-free from Roth IRAWhen you sell property (or any other investment) inside of a qualified account (Traditional or Roth IRA) there are no taxes, you are investing inside of a tax-deferred vehicleHope this helps! 

Knows the market well with a number of connections, you just have to be willing to pull trigger when you the find the deal that works.

Great Question Dr @Dan Handford, When I was asked this question i pulled out a Bank statement showing proof of funds.Now this is OK on small deals but not often possible when you plan to syndicate and don't have the money seating in the bank. 

I've been interested in investing in the Lehigh Valley for a while, but haven't pulled the trigger.

If allowed, yes you’d have to pull a permit, with a licensed contractor, get it inspected and as stated above it’s hit or miss how much opening up and redoing you may have to do. 

Otherwise, I would start with pulling out the equity from my other property or selling it in order to get more funds.Maybe I'm just in way over my head.

-If you have any agent contacts, they can easily pull property reports that will have most of that information on it.