Each lender has their own standards or parameters, such as draw period, FICO required, whether it is interest only or principal and interest, whether you can lock a portion of the HELOC or it is all floating interest rate, etc.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Can I use Buildium for bookkeeping including tracking all transactions per LLC including mortgages and can it produce detailed reports at tax time?

They  justified it by saying the mortgage was paid off but there are still other expenses. 

For next steps, I would highly recommend you get in contact with a hard money lender and get your lending in place so you can start making offers.

The most obvious is that you will be able to offset your mortgage with renting out a few rooms.

He had equity and pulled it out of the home creating a mortgage that today is more then the value of the home.

You can check out hard money lenders and private money where they focus more on the deal itself than your employment. 

When I was talking to a lender today, he mentioned that if closing a property on LLC has no leverage or adds value to pre-approval.

@Michael BaumIn addition, you need to have reserves for the mortgage and unforseen repairs.6 months of mortgage payments would be good to carry you and fund emergency repairs.