You have used home equity lines of credit to purchase investment rentals and want to know the best way to pay down the HELOCs.Between the two properties you bought, after expenses, you have $250 a month positive cashflow to use.What I like to do is pay down some principal every month with my positive cashflow.I use my extra active income from real estate commissions helping other investors to pay down the principal even more which just frees up that credit for me to use again.I know I can refinance the HELOC debt before it changes to principal and interest as it is just interest only payments as yours are.One difference is the cashflow, I have greater positive cashflow and could make the principal and interest payment in the future with the extra cashflow I already enjoy.I always get HELOCs on my income properties as well after purchasing them to pull out as much of my downpayment as possible.

I know curb appeal is important, but is it possible to overdo it OR even have no curb appeal at all?

But even to this day the money is always the winner not me.. thats how you raise significant capital ..

If you reduce to $2,300 and are able to fill the property faster, yes, you are "losing" $100 per month, but even at that rate, it would take two whole years to equal the loss of the $2,400 vacancy month.

@Greg P.have you tried networking, going to meetups, or even starting your own mastermind or meetup for this?

If a single-family owner-occupied property is worth $400,000 - I wouldn't invest more than $280,000 (70%) in a note secured by the property.ITV takes priority over desired yield - so even if the note discounts to $350,000 based on desired yield, the investor still won't go beyond their maximum ITV. 

That’s something I’m actively exploring—whether it’s through direct-to-seller marketing, networking with local wholesalers, or even tapping into connections through my brother-in-law, who works with builders and contractors in the area.I’m not expecting slam-dunk deals or easy wins, but the numbers on a few potential projects I’ve run so far seem to work under the assumption that I’ll leave some cash in the deals.

Even a LOI is not strong enough to start spending time, effort and MONEY on due diligence.  

You'll have an option between the FHA househack 3.5% down and the conventional househack 5% down - if you're VA then even better though. 

We do have a property management company and even with our experience with LTR's, just no way we could effectively manage this home without local property management.