At least a full size truck but ideally a dump truck load of research. 

The payments would be over 5k a month of dead weight and overhead like electrical.

There are loads of free listing sites like Zillow and Zumper.

You may have heard that interest is front loaded, or that you pay more interest up front in a 30 year loan, but that is deceiving.

But I'm having a hard time keeping up with the work load of tenants in and out as my wife is unwell and we have 2 small kids.

We have gone from being able to get a load for a large roof like a school or 100+ unit apartment building in a few weeks, to now being out about 11 months, with no signs of improvement on the horizon. 

Those earnings are weighted in favour of the lender in the early life of a traditional mortgage, gradually shifting towards your benefit as the mortgage matures.The determination of which is the better investment of the two scenarios can only be answered by your expectations of returns on investment, and time commitment, and of course, if they are actually realistic.

Someone will be right at some point but just got an off market deal UC today that will bring my client approximately 2k/month in cash flow and a boat load of equity.   

Your loads are within the existing panel capacity.

Since the mortgage is front loaded with interest, and as the years go by making payments, when you get to the point where the HELOC is greater than the payoff number, there is very little interest remaining in the mortgage.