I need to find the balance my family is comfortable with.Now, long story short I started thinking about hard money lenders.  

I could go on but as bad as it may sound you have to eliminate as much of the human interaction as possible (there's an obvious balancing act there) because humans cost so much money. 

It's a nice balance of cash flow and appreciation.

I could list a million reasons why, but for starters- most HELOCs are free to close, they don't cost a penny until you draw on them and once you pay the balance, the payment goes away forever.

If you are interested in having an account for each property Relay bank can handle that with no fees and no minimum balance. 

I just discovered T-Mobile Money which is offering 4% for the first $3000 and 1% for the remaining balance! 

Amex is amazing in that you can shift available/unused credit balance from a personal line to the new business line(s).

Typically you will see about 50% for all expenses including vacancy factors and the balance is what is left for debt service and profits.

I've done the weighted average interest on a rate and term vs. cash out refi and often the effective interest rate for the cash out means you're paying between 7-9% for that money....the reason being you're paying the higher rate on not only the cash, but also the entire remaining mortgage balance.

In most states the line on the HUD/settlment is lines 203/503 has the balance of the mortgage, subject to the existing mortgage.