@Paulo AscurraIt depend on your comfort level with investing remotely - some folks like to be able to reach out and touch their properties and whether you intend to go-it alone or find local partners where you invest.While I still follow certain areas around MTL (I use to live in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and on the island (st-denis) many, many, years ago), like much of Southern Ontario, it has been quite some time since I have come across a deal which be sufficient reward for dancing with Le Regie or the Landlord and Tenant Board.

@Eric Slater - The official term for SEC is the "housing choice voucher" program.

If not available I guess not many choices.

IF, big if, the market is good for house flipping that would be my choice and I would get into it full time.

Appreciation is fantasy until accessed and can disappear in a heart beat.Unless your actual rental income is sufficient enough to cover the cost of paying a return on the equity on a monthly bases it simply does not exist and only creates negative value in a rental property.Investors that confuse appreciation with cash flow or return on investment are living in a fantasy world.

You would invest in a property that has sufficient enough positive cash flow to cover all or part of your portion of the rent.

your ability to pull cash and pay down the HELOC will depend on your value of your "investment property," that you're currently buying after you fix it up.If the value is high enough you'll be about to get out a new cash out loan that is high enough to refinance your current outstanding debt plus provide sufficient proceeds to pay down or off the HELOC so that way you can rinse and reuse it again on a new property.As long as you gauged value correctly on the buy side of the investment property you should be fine.As for how DTI is calculated on the HELOC, it depends on who you go to for a loan but typically we'd take the current min monthly interest payment on your current monthly obligation.Some banks had higher hypothetical payment models (assume 1% min monthly payment on the limit of your HELOC) which threw your DTI off, just try to avoid banks like this...

Low valued SFHs can cash flow, higher value homes can not.Purpose built properties, such as multi plex units are built and designed explicitly for the use as rentals and are priced accordingly (or should be).A personal home is not a investment, it is a life style choice that will ultimately cost more to the owner than it will ever be worth (except in certain areas like CA where no one understands the value of money). 

I don't know what a competitive fee is for CA because I've never used an attorney there for a real estate transaction - the CAR forms have always been sufficient.  

Title co (buyer's choice) takes their sweet time to answer questions, but sent us the castrated version of "ALTA Settlement Statement - Seller" (http://www.alta.org/trid/download.cfm?