It has been my experience that the first mortgage holder (the bank) will make sure that in the event of damage, the property will be repaired to its original condition so they can protect their collateral.

A commercial loan would cross all deeds as collateral and contain providions for partial release meaning each property is pro rata to the illoan balance.Also, Fannie does have a limit to the number of conventionally financed properties.  

My question is (or rather, was), once I collateralize my personal home, when is it released as collateral?

The company called me to say they needed me to sign a deed of trust for collateral.

Those can eat up profits quickly.If you fall in love with the property, you have to get it rented and refinance the hard money into a more permanent financing vehicle (whether conventional or commercial).Rates on the hard money run anywhere from 8 to 12 with points running around 3 to 4 depending on the loan size.Like I said, there are lots of scenarios on these depending and those generally are affected by the 3 C's, Credit, Collateral and Cash.  

@Chris SeveneyWe need to cut down on the pre-bid initial DD time it takes to make bids on assets (noteproz seems to do that and Scott Carson endorses them).We also need an asset manager and a contact list and something that produce reports and something that we can upload our soft collateral to and maybe even have an interface or upload/download capability into QB.Thanks.

So one thing to consider is offering up a 2nd lien against one of your rentals to cross-collateralize with a new property.

House Hacking is a great direction to obtain Landlord Status and show collateral for investors for future acquisitions.

Unless you have enough properties to do a "wrap" loan for cross collateralizing or something along those lines, I don't see the purpose of going commercial.

There will need to be an entity able to withstand recourse liability, and if the LLC doesn't have another guarantor and/or collateral, then they're going to base your terms on your personal financials.I would shop some local bank balance sheet lenders as well as credit unions.