If you see a tenant storing vehicles, running a machine shop, using it as residential quarters use extreme caution as this is likely a non-permitted use despite what you may have been told or read otherwise.

I would very much like the number of the thrift shop owner.

All of these are being run around a dayjob which is 50 hours/week, the brewery, a small hobby shop, and having a family wife, 7 year old daughter, and a 6 month old daughter.  

Or should I continue working at my job at a body shop and learn that business but my actual goal in life is to get into real estate.

So as you shop around for a property manager please ask if they are licensed as a real estate agent or broker.

Problem is that I'm shopping around and everyone elses rates are like mid 4's to low 5's for an 80% LTV HELOC so even taking the 90% LTV option with PenFed I'm still on par with the competition it seems.

Nobody is selling anything, just talking shop and sharing experiences.

If your plan is to leverage equity somewhere, but you don't have deal in which to use your cash, I'd put it on my primary and when you are ready to start shopping, open up a HELOC to tap in to it.

I wouldn't hold on to anything that was losing money unless there was huge predicted upside sometime in the future (massive appreciation, massive rent increases in the area, the possibility of a developer buying it for a big number because it's next to a commercial area and they want to put up a shopping center... and they NEED your property etc). 

Not many local people shopping for homes today or tomorrow!