Do people see an opportunity to separate the (seeming) unsecured debt from the secured debt?

The best example in my family is my dad offered to guaranty some of his brothers gambling debts to some loan sharks.

Ive been in deals with a timeframe between 3 and 7 years.In addition to equity, you can invest and earn interest in debt funds.  

Rental Value.Now to my original point.If you can't bring in enough rent to cash flow comfortably over and above your total debt service on the property, it's not a deal and you don't buy it.

High criteria should eliminate anyone that you would turn away anyway.  

Should I be debt free before I buy rental properties?

A third strategy is to put all the debt not on your current residence but on the next home to be acquired and you can add all the rehab dollars into it as needed.

shop around if you want typical conventional agency debt then 20% but you could also do a conventional rehab, but why are you not open to non or sub prime non doc type loans or BRRR strategy

Project 80% complete, migrating out of hard money into permanent debt structure, seeking non-recourse loan to fund the final leg of work and repay HML in one go.

It's those maniacs that buy homes cash via quit claim deed off of craigslist that really get screwed.Make sure your property manager is a licensed real estate brokerage.Understand you can not eliminate all risk, only mitigate it.