With that type of experience, I might target a fix/flip or HML that has experience triggers keeping your costs low and maybe even something like deferred interest payments or bundled fees.

-Type of deal/loan that would best help me to achieve my goals. 

If you can get some cash out from the HELOC, you can then leverage that against hard money or other types of financing.

However, I have two types of clients that relate to this scenario: 1) The client who is over protective, and puts each one of their rental properties into its own LLC/Trust and 2) The client is who focused on simplicity, and puts all rental properties under the same umbrella.Neither one is right or wrong, it just depends on what is important to you.

More specifically, my questions would be:What type of account(s) do I put the money I save for maintenance, vacancy, capital expenditures, etc. into?

There are 3 documents of mine there: Rental Criteria, Tenant Screening Questions, and Property Rules. 

These types of things are becoming more and more common in cities throughout the United States.

That is real estate ; ) Also, choosing the type of property, working with vendors on behalf of the owner to facilitate repairs and renovations is also real estate.

Im new to investing and are looking to understand what the type of loans are available to buy rental property (single, multi family home etc). 

It's been steadily going up however, so I'm either looking for lenders who would do a HELOC once my credit score reaches the required number OR I'm also seeking private lender who would be willing to lend with a second position lien on the property for the renovation amount ($35k-$40k)I was working with a private lender but he proved to be unprofessional and not able to prepare the proper, legal documents.