Refinance vs. HELOC vs. Hard Money

[Justin Hack]

Hello BP, I am new to the real estate investing world, as I am sure many of you are, and I am having a tough time deciding how to finance my first deal. I bought my primary residence property for roughly $100K when I was 23 using an FHA load that I got through lendingtree.com (yikes) and over the past 4 years I have paid weekly installments on my mortgage in order to accrue equity faster before I even thought about investing in real estate. There is a house across the street from me that has the same major details (sq. ft, bed, bath, etc) that just sold for $138K so I am confident that there has been a good amount of appreciation to my home, not to mentioned that while I have lived here I have updated the kitchen, flooring, furnace, water heater, and paint to add to the value. My question is surrounding the best method to capitalize on the equity I have accrued or if I should pursue outside money to get started on my investing career.

I have thought about refinancing in order to increase my current cash flow on my property so that I can save faster but since interests rates have gone up (from my 4.25%, 30 year fixed) it seems that my monthly payment wouldn't change much. I have quoted refinancing with a few banks including my current one and it seems that I could reduce my monthly payment by roughly $100 while extending my mortgage back out to 30 years, or I can increase my monthly payment by roughly $20 and cash out about $17,000 (at 80% LTV) to use towards my next investment. Both options would rid me of about $105 of monthly PMI (which lasts for the lifetime of the load since it is a FHA loan.

Secondly I have considered a HELOC so that I keep my equity in the house and only use what I need. Given that I don't have a ton of equity however I am thinking that I would end up using all of it and then have a separate payment for the interest on the HELOC rather than having it incorporated into my monthly mortgage payment.

Third, I have considered refinancing to a new 30 year mortgage to rid myself of the PMI which would reduce my payment by roughly $90 per month with a higher interest rate in the long term. If I was to do this, I wouldn't cash out anything but instead increase my cash flow and pursue outside investments from Hard/Private money lenders.

My question is if anyone had a similar situation as they got started out and if there may be any guidance as to what the best method may be or, more importantly, what additional information I would need to make an informed decision. 

First forum post! Super excited to get started and any help is greatly appreciated!