I'm looking for an area that has solid industry that is not at risk of mass-obsolescence in the next decade.

If you think you will go FHA, Conventional, FHA 203k, etc. and then Quit Claim the property, to a LLC, or a Land Trust you run the risk of the lender discovering a Title Transfer occurred and activating the "Acceleration Clause" or "Due on Sale Clause" that requires the loan to be paid in full, within 'x' number of days.

without the risk and hassles of owning a rental.I was considering picking up 8 to 10 weeks in Vegas.. but then just bought a home in Summerlin instead as my wife wanted something more substantial . and so it turned out it will be come our primary.. with Oregon our secondary.. its a good tax strategy for us. 

I know there is always the possibility of having to pull that out earlier if something happens with the unit or the lease agreement, and with that would come penalties in the CD route, but the possibility of penalties vs the potential gains may outweigh the risk, especially if you keep a certain percentage as a back up and not place all security deposits into a CD account. 

What I am saying is that you have probably been misled about the amount of time, effort, and risk involved, both financial and legal.

Long story short, your HELOC is going to carry a 6%+ interest rate to start with and most likely will climb from there.

This has proven ineffective as most of these properties' income can barely sustain themselves [even with a "larger" (20%-30%) amount of equity down] and the ones that do have worse returns and higher risk than if you were to put money into a CD, for example. 

@Samuel Carmichael besides what @Brandon Ingegneri said about looking at absolute dollar amounts to figure out if it's even worth the aggravation, I also agree with @Michinori Kaneko about looking at percentages.Personally I look at percentages first, namely 1) cash on cash return (yearly money back after all expenses including mortgage, divided by all money invested to get it rentable) and 2) debt service coverage ratio (net income after operating expenses but before mortgage payment, divided by the mortgage payment).The first is (obviously) a measure of return, while the second is more of a measure of risk as it tells you how much of a buffer you have between the property's net income and the monthly fixed mortgage payment.After you get a little more experience you'll also start to factor things like replacement reserves into account.

Your money and sanity are at risk.

I suspect they are not going to take any risk for a few hundred dollars in title and escrow fees so they will stick to their 2 year minimums.there is a company in CA I believe that specializes in insuring these..i checked into this on a lot I had in Charleston SC that I was having a hard time getting insurance for.. but when I read there policy it was clear .. no lender ( construction lender ) at least a bank would rely on it.. and I highly doubt a reputable mortgage lender would rely on that title insurance..