:PIRL accomplish your goals via a cash out refi or HELOC, and go from there.

Not much info because there's a lot of variables, but it depends on the first property whether you're buying a fixer upper which you could refinance to pull some equity out , depending on the equity you could use helocs or a home equity loan (basically a second mortgage). 

I have a HELOC for 6.5%. 

My only other suggestion would be to consider HELOC?

This is based off of much less upgraded houses recently sold in my neighborhood.The remaining balance on loan is 230KI do not know if doing a cash out refinance would make my monthly payments and property taxes much higher to gain access to the money or if using a HELOC would be a good way to go or even if there is a way to pay off the loan with the equity.

For example, if I have a zero balance on the HELOC, how do they estimate my payments and factor that into the ratio?

Similar to when you draw down on a heloc and your credit score goes down

I'm having a hard time finding a lender who will do a HELOC on a rental property. 

We purchased a 3-unit with a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) from our home. 

Greeting Everyone, new here and trying to weigth my options:  wife currently has about 15K in private student loans at a 12% interest. current payment of about $225.00 is mostly going into interest. i am trying to clear the way fast from debt to move onto bigger better things such as of course real estate/rental properties. we have received a few quotes on HELOCs (Current equity about 70K) with an interest rate of 3.4% for first 6moths and then 6.4%.we are planning on aggressively attacking this debt. does this plan make sense?