The catch is, it would cost us ALL of our savings...

Then you put all of your income toward the HELOC and try to depress the balance as much as possible all month.

You may have to go creative rather than conventional, but depending on where it is and what you are doing, you may be looking at anywhere between 100K-300K in soft costs (permitting, design, architecture, utility hook ups, etc.) and a construction budget of probably 1 Mil to whatever, once again depending on what you are doing and where. 

The biggest problem is the cost per door is a lot more than OH, MO, etc.

This includes mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, maintenance costs, and property management fees.

Can try to repositionto Class B, but neighborhood may impede these efforts.Vacancy Est: Historically 10%, but 15-20% should be used to also cover tenant nonpayment, eviction costs & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores of 560-620, many blemishes, but should have no evictions in last 2 years.

Your insurance or their renters insurance may also cover costs of lodging during repairs.

Run your numbers and stick to them- note that maintenance costs are still high, so pay careful attention to your numbers. 

I'd run a leveraged return calculation on your existing rentals and compare that to your current yield. depending on the cost of funds- it could really be worthwhile to use leverage wisely

@David Roy GriffinBeen in the call center industry for 16 years holding different executive positions (even in the Philippines), so I can tell you this is not a good option for a number of reasons.1. 1,000 names will never bill enough to cover the call centers "hard costs" (training time, dev time, QA, overhead).