Sometimes you have to be willing to just take the risk and hope that your experience and research will bring you out the other side smelling like roses.... or with change in your pocket and experience you can parlay into the next investment. bottom line real estate is not for the conservative and risk averse investor.

But say you can borrow the HELOC at 6% and parlay that money into something that gets you 10% returns, you should take advantage of that arbitrage.  

Also know that if you max that heloc out and parlay it into the next cash purchase, this will affect your refi ability for the next one (DTI)  

In fact, I would wager the community would love to hear unbiased opinions about going through those programs.  

I will make a high wager that you are right now living far above the means of hundreds of thousands of other "less fortunate" individuals in this country. 

If I had earned a degree wIth a valuable skill and parlayed that income into real estate I’d be much further along.

If you want to gamble on appreciation, wager your money in the stock market.

What I was responding to was the idea that medical care should somehow only be reserved for those who don't do stupid things and medical professionals should be allowed to dispense life or death according to some ambiguous and completely unenforceable standard.I'll wager that every single person on this board has done multiple stupid things in their lives, including you. 

Frequent lay we all stash cash and parlay our real estate and never get to enjoy it.

And I would wager that I can point to 18,000+ people who won’t be in the “winners” category 5 years from now.