@Rick TurmanThe answer to your question depends a lot on whether the properties will be flipped or held as rentals.To answer some of your questions.Items in the closing statement can either be capitalized, currently expensed or has no impactCapitalized = building, etccurrently expensed = real estate taxes, home owners insuranceno impact = payments to escrowAlso regarding depreciating over 27.5, the whole house doesn't get depreciated(if you are holding it as a rental), you have to allocate between rental/land where land is no depreciated.If you are looking for a professional - you may want to go on extension and then interview some accountants post 7/15/20.

Look to Lawndale for impacted duplexes, Gardena and Torrance for value SFR’s, and Lomita and San Pedro for newer areas of speculation.

Those are big impact items that people can often forget.After that, I'd look at occupancy rates and how they'd differ between the two. 

So it can take maybe 9-12 months to have an accurate idea about how COVID impacts real estate prices.

But I have a 16 unit deal in east Nob Hill which is in a nice area and I could see myself living there.You would need to spend some time researching the areas that you are interested in and see if there are any smaller multi-family deals in those areas.Property prices have not been impacted by COVID - yet...We can connect and discuss it in more detail if you'd like.

I just figured if I don’t use the heloc it will not impact my debt to income, but I’m sure they still look at it as a risk factor.

The obvious areas like Vegas and NYC I can see why they may be impacted.  

That's a great example of one person having a big impact on their town.

Additionally, if you get found out for mortgage fraud, that could make the lender who issued the loan to you look really bad to the regulatory agencies which could negatively impact their career

How will this impact the coming years ?