If you live in a Tenant-friendly state like Oregon, California, Maine, Vermont, or Hawaii, you should seriously consider investing in another state or finding another way to make money with real estate like flips or tax sales.

I've been toying with the idea of getting into rentals as some more supplemental income, and although I've struggled with the math as far as justification, i believe the main reasons folks here by rentals (please correct if I'm wrong) are: Cashflow (although I've seen people do deals eg on Roofstock for only $100-200/mo) + appreciation (when sold) + taxesSo assuming I'm correct there, then the potential tax benefits are 30% of the reason to do rentals.

-seller has the ability to foreclose on you and keep the payments you've made to that point (and the property he would potentially be repossessing would be totally upgraded on your dime-seller receives steady passive income which may be very attractive to someone that ageAs far as other leverage, the most important thing to do would be to find out more about HIS needs. 

By trade, I am an Family Law Attorney; however, Real Estate is my main passion, so I made the switch about a year and half ago.  

My only observation here is that every investment should be measured against other available ones to determine relative attractiveness. 

If you're OK with rougher neighborhoods and willing to deal with the type of clientele it attracts, you may be able to pull it off.

My main question was: When I'm looking at numbers (and say I'm targeting a MFU listed around $80k for instance), if I pay for the multi-family unit using a HELOC from my primary residence, do I load that number into my calculations as "cash to close?" 

I also invest mainly in Des Moines off you’d ever like to meet up reach out.

My 2 main goals with real estate is to start up a wholesale and rehab business along with acquiring many rental properties to build my passive income.

If you can find the one, they could also help you with things like: "that neighborhood doesn't attract the right sort of tenants"; "sorry, I won't manage properties in that area"; "I reckon you could get a better rent return if you choose this other neighborhood" - and such like.