I always suggest going to the multi-family house hack route when starting out. 1) when starting out you are usually younger and it's much easier to house hack without a big family, not impossible to do with a family just a little harder. 2) Multi-family in most scenarios helps you save on housing cost, if not live for free, which helps you save even more money for your next deal. 3) This starts you out with more doors right away and jump-starts the investing path, not to mention it's really easy to get a single-family and forget your investing and treat it too much like your forever home by over rehabbing.

I would treat this as a last resort. 

The real estate agents take 6% or about $24,000 on a $400,000 sale and you subtract your $200,000 mortgage and $2,000 for closing and wind up with about $174,000 that sometimes gets taxed at a capital gains rate depending on how you've treated your property for tax purposes.Few banks are doing HELOCs right now.

Most of them I've never met in person, but that really doesn't matter when the level of trust is there and each party has demonstrated a track record of following through on their word (i.e. the contractor on delivering a good product and me as the customer ensuring I am paying them quickly and always treating them with respect). 

He has a great team that treats properties really well and gets great returns for owners. 

It all sounds great on paper, but in reality, capital always moves to where it is treated best.I also did some research on the constitutionality of a wealth tax, and there is wide disagreement among constitutional lawyers.

They treat it like a business and I treat them like a business.

If so, it's not the end of the world -- just treat it like any other CapEx in a SFR (i.e. saving up for a new roof). 

I'd think it'd be treated as inventory and not an investment. 

Hope LA is treating you well!