Ideally, one unit I can rent out long term and one unit for short term (3-6 months seasonally) that I might use every once in a while / on the off season.

Mostly I want to know other downsides to commission based off sqft rather than %.

My primary residence is paid off which is why I want to get a HELOC. 

I tell our customers all of the time, when you're steadily pursuing highly distressed leads with this criteria it's not a question of if, but how often you will contact the heir to a property who either didn't realized they owned, or they though the property had already been auctioned off by the bank or county.  

Hey all - first off, thanks to everyone for all of the valuable information and tips!

I use someone off UpWork to run Skips – usually 1.50 per lead and have about a 60% success rate and easy format which is the big thing for me compared to other services I tried I was spending too much time trying to format for the skips or after and was just not worth it.

@Bryce Jamison you have to drop mom off I guess :) Seriously though a beach cart like wheeleeze or something to bring the stuff to the beach is good even if you are only 2 blocks away.

Starting out with a house hack is by far the best way to kick off your investment journey.

Would regular rentals cashflow, or would I be better off focusing on MTRs? 

There are many more but that is just off the top of my head.