Home equity loan, heloc or refi. Starting out

[Camilo Pichardo]

Currently own a 2 unit as my family primary resident (current not rented, temporarily reverted single family). Want to move on to purchase a second multi-family. Leaning towards a home equity loan or refi as choices since I've been turn down for Helocs due to DTI ratio which i find strange. Im making 85k on w2, $1,600/mo. mortgage, no car payments, no credit card debt. What they dont like is my 124k student loans on administrative foreberance by the Biden administration. A local bank approved me a 200k home equity loan at 7.5% at $1,447/mo and currently talking to mortgage originator about refi options. Im torn between this decision. Im worried the home equity loan will be a problem in qualifying for the 500k second mortgage needed for my second multi family unit. Worst case i will use a heave down payment using the liquid home equity cash to qualify for that second mortgage.

advise 🙏 please