I am sitting on approximately $40k in equity I would like to tap into at closing.

Some have more than $1 million in equity while others have less.4.

I would suggest these action steps to get a more clear idea of a path to take.FInd out how much your primary home has in equity(for heloc), how much it can rent for, and look for duplex/triplexes you could live in one of the units and rent the others.

I now have about 13,000 in equity to use in case of emergencies.My aquaintance/friend is selling his house for 45,000.

For instance, if you buy something that has a lot of built in equity (more than 50%) then $100 per door becomes less important because I will want to sell short term to capture the equity that I'm buying and use it for other investments.My general strategy is buy and hold but I'm looking for properties that are under performing, distressed, or need renovations due to owner neglect.

Then they should gift you 14k each more in equity the next year(2013).

So I would assume we have roughly $60-80K in equity.

In regards to my rented condo, I am getting about $400 in monthly cash flow and can get about $300K in equity if I were to sell it at the current market.

Looks like you got a home run on the built in equity though. 

@Travis Shaw, no crowdfunding is not just limited to debt investments, and you can also invest in equity.