You should consider refinancing after the home is rented so you can take some cash out of the property to move a little quicker in your buying process.  

I believe it's a lot easier and quicker to foreclose in TX so you need to be ready to payoff the loan quickly in case it happens. 

I know some people who “just throw money atit” to get things done quicker, but I personally never would.

For a quicker analysis, the average tax rate for Texas is 2.8% (2.8 cents per $1).

I would highly recommend, if you do condos to stick with 2+ bedrooms as they are renting quicker than the 1 bedroom units.  

They are charging big dollars to get quicker lead times. 

Does anyone have any options on how to further define my path forward and how to get up and quicker?

Everyone is different but I can promise if you have a good mentor (not guru) you'll learn a lot quicker and make less mistakes.

Since you are borrowing cash to purchase a home, you will need to pay a certain amount per month for the IO payments on top of hard money, renovations, utilities, etc.With that being utilizing HELOCs will allow you to grow your rental portfolio much quicker so it can be a great strategy as long as you account for the above risks.Hope this helps!

The only value I see in using the HML is a quicker closing for this deal...and you're right if I account for the property management, which I'm doing myself, it would lower the cash on cash return...This is looking like its a deal with very small margin for cash on cash return.