Cash reserves vs HELOC

[Alex Corral]

Say for example you have $100k in cash reserves, and also have $200k equity in your personal home. You want to buy a few homes for buy & hold rentals. Is it better to first take out a HELOC, before using your cash reserves for down payments on multiple homes? Should you use the HELOC money for the down payments instead of the cash reserves? Will the extra HELOC debt be an issue for getting conventional financing? Can it be used since it's borrowed money? If you use your cash reserves 1st, will that be an issue to later buy more properties using the HELOC money since you've spent your cash reserves and getting into more debt using the HELOC for down payments? Help!