ANY heloc can be called with out any warning.. no future draws and balance due... at the sole discretion of the bank.. you know those 20 page tiny print mortgages its in there believe me...

Looking for a rental right now is driving me crazy we found a place that's a good area but it's really tiny for all our stuff so I may just have to throw everything into storage not even a lot of closet space for clothes .

Forcing appreciation gives you some extra equity insulation from a drop in prices, or if you would rather be more aggressive it allows you the ability to cash out the extra equity via refinance or 1031 to redeploy it, but this also has added risks, there is no free lunch.Conservative financing, with lots of equity and cash flow margin for error, and cash reserves is another key ... in a downturn the quality of cash flow is every bit as important (I'd argue even more important) than the quantity ... what levels of margin are appropriate depends on the quality of the asset, which directly affects the quality and volatility of cash flows; a class B property will tend to have lower initial cash flow but more steady and increasing cash flow than a class C property ... judging adequate margins of safety is the really tricky part, because not only do you need to factor in quality as stated above but also what may be perfectly adequate in a "normal" market may be grossly inadequate in a downturn ... and yes, cash flow is affected in a downturn, it is not somehow magically immune; rents may not go down, but they very often do stop.

Not as big of cities like Columbus, but a way to get started at a great cost, and bring Magnitude and Quantity into your favor.As for other areas, Toledo is a hot area, Cincinnati is getting a lot of attention again.  

Many closings have been held up by misinformed lenders, but it scary you found so many.As far as quantity of properties.

After discussions with the local building inspector about different options we decided to decomission it in place (basically filling it with concrete) and building a second wall in front of the fire box, which caused us to loose about 5 inches of living room space.We also opened up the tiny kitchen into the living space by removing the load bearing wall in the center of the house and installing a structural LVL beam in the attic to handle the load.

I've owned the house for few years and have spent a lot of time trying to design an addition to add value to the property, but the current floor plan is really not conducive to realizing a return on that investment (tiny living room, low ceiling basement, poorly placed basement stairs, etc.). 

Buy a tiny plot of land in the woods and build a cool little cabin by hand.

Knob Noster is tiny - population about 2,700. 

My concern would be that S2A would be sorta like the "tiny house" thing in that it sounds like a great idea but there's not that many people that actually want to buy one.