Mortgage v home equity loan or refinance

[Rivy S.]

I've got a newbie question.  I can see that most sellers prefer cash buyers.  I've got a finite amount of cash that I can spend on investing, but I don't want to sink it all into one property.  So, could I buy in cash, and then pull a large percentage of the money out by refinancing or taking a home equity loan? And then repeat the process with a less expensive property?  What would the ramifications of such an approach be? How do the rates for the different kinds of loans compare?

Or am I way off the mark, and this isn't even possible?