Small MF is in a way a combination of the disadvantages from both ends of the scale, you do not yet have achieved much economy of scale, but you have to deal with MF downsides.

I felt like I achieved success on my first swing.

Challenges was there were various walls that had to be knocked down to achieve the layout of a five bed-five bath home.

I was wondering what everyone uses to gather crime data on areas?

Keep studying any BP data you can find here on the site.

Many folks leave out this step and wonder why their marketing achieves average or poor results. 

You won't figure this out from Costar or Zillow or most other data sources. 

If you buy mostly off-market you'll get zero commission, so a major factor for you will be if you plan to shop mostly via the MLS (which can be a good strategy especially for SFH where the data tends to be better quality). 

For your situation, I believe a cash-out refinance is more suitable then a HELOC to achieve a better interest rates.

So the volatility churn has been, inventory and demand have reset somewhat, with sellers trimming down their asking prices to put them within some achievable range of what they got appraised at, and buyers formerly under contract going back into the market with a more modest expectation of what they should be able to borrow with what cash they are able to put down.