I come from a long line of insurance people on both sides of the family, and have more than a passing familiarity with insurance claims as a result (regular dinner table talk)...and I would never in a million years think that someone's burst pipe leaking into my apartment is an Act of God.

We have resources to tap (money and people), and some experience in rehab, but My business partner and I have "regular jobs" so a balance between cost and required repairs has to happen.

I have had success raising money and finding partners at my local REIA.Just like any other marketing strategy, you can't expect to go to 1 or 2 meetings and find these people, you have to be a regular and attend every meeting and talk about the deals you are working on or have worked on in the past.

Hey Greg, we live in Houston but my wife's family is in Abilene so we're there pretty regularly and have liked the houses we see there.

The thought occurred to me the other day to potentially start a fund, at my regular job, to invest in a property.

What are the advantages (or disadvantages) of using the home equity line of my primary residence compare to trying to get a regular 30yfixed loan for the rental property?

Best bet is to have systems regularly tested

We still take an application fee and perform regular screening (credit/background/reference/employment checks) but our expectations are most will have little to no credit history.

I have three and have made great use of them, but I need to get rid of one of them that I don't use much anymore due to having to start working a regular job again and I will probably need to pay the 2014 maintainance fee and the transfer fee to entice someone into taking it off my hands.

Managing a rehab and turn around has a bunch of risk from outside of the country and is hard enough when you are local for a multifamily project.You can still find a few but will likely used hard money with high debt service and points while stabilizing to 90 to 100% and then selling off or refinancing in 18 to 24 months to a regular loan.