Our market is the same way, either spend the money on a hot tub or expect much lower revenues!

You run the risk of getting yourself in trouble at your level of knowledge about wholesaling or at the  very least, wasting money and a lot of time.

Hard money financing 10% down How did you add value to the deal?

He just kept coming up with new issues and needing more money that didn't exist. 

I'm just curious...I'm here in CA, and with the cost of housing, I'm always wondering if my home is too large and if I should be finding other ways to invest my money, such as buying rental property (2 town homes instead of a house for example) and moving into a house later. 

This typically costs money, maybe $.02 -.10 per record.

At present, a fully drawn $250K HELOC with (optimal credit) would offer an indexed rate based off of Fed Funds or Prime + 3-4% rate (depending on LTV, Property Type, Credit and LA) currently pricing at between 8.5-11% (11.5-13% w/lower credit) and interest only payments of +/- $2000 but the qualifying rate and payment for underwriting would be nearer $2300+ (on the low end) plus the 1st mortgage, and accurate taxes and insurance. 

As for other properties, you can use websites showing tax records here https://www.crimpr.net/ and perhaps use skip tracing services like TLO to find owners. 

Without considering insurance, taxes, maintenance, vacancy, or cap-ex you would need to rent the units for ~$3k/month to break even.

Depends on whether or not you can make money on it.