Another expense you will need to account for IF you buy a small multifamily is that the owner is resonsible for cutting the grass.

A Heloc is subject to unpredictable increases by the Fed Reserve anytime.

One rents for $795/month and the other $820/month, with tenants paying all utilities and taking care of grass/snow.

@Steve Racicot no one is collecting a monthly fee and everyone handles there own things, except there is one person who owns 20 of the units who has been mowing all the grass but no one is paying him.

I am green as grass when it comes to all things real estate, please tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to protect myself from myself.

From my experience (23 years), I will tell you that attorneys can be fed one of two ways. 1) appetizers or 2) five course meals.People see items such as operating agreements, contracts, etc, as a check the box kind of thing- "my bank requires an operating agreement so I will use my favorite attorney, Google, to obtain one".  

And recently I'm being fed leads on a number of good properties.  

"I thought the high *** grass with broken down vehicles in your yard and torn sheets hanging in your windows was particularly attractive."    

There are regulations to follow from the feds, state, county, city, the broker you work for and any MLS you belong to...

Some may not live in the country, like in my case, but at least you are choosing at random and not being fed their best investors.