But where's a body to park their cash safely and earn anywhere close to the 4-5% I'm paying on the HELOC. ?

As @Major Robertson stated the domain name has little impact these days on your organic SEO rankings.

This has Equifax, Transunion, Experian on it.Each will have a credit score.If your wife's credit is new credit sometimes it drops down a lot in the first few months and after months of positive history goes up higher than it was before.Also for instance if you have a credit card of 1,000 limit and are using more than 33% of it  ( 330 dollars ) then it can impact your score heavily in a negative way.

For $75-150 it sometimes has a lot of impact and you need it to start the FC so why not send it asap.

No body messes with BP! 

Furthermore, the majority of tenants here get Govt. assistance for their utilities so the impact is not always as significant.

I bought my primary residence in May of 2007, when the market was at it's height. Home values have dropped so much in my area that I cannot break even if I were to sell, so I intend to stay put for a couple of years, ...

Other items for example can be addressed that cost less and may or may not directly impact rent.

Not sure how assessments impact the costs, so any pointers would be great3.

My concern would be if you don't feel comfortable going to the house alone is this going to also severely impact the number of qualified rental applicants you would get for this property?