Rehab and get a heloc or rehab and sell?

[Sylvain Girard]

Hi BP,This is my first post started looking into real estate investing last year. I read many books and listened to many podcast and audio books. I also joined local meetups. 

I just listened to J. Scott podcast and I wanted some opinions on my current situation. My wife and I bought our first house 2.5 years ago for 200k. Our market now says with 30k rehab our house would sell for 270k. We still owe 187k on it. 

My question is what would be the best strategy to start investing? Take a loan for 30k rehab and sell or rehab and hold as our primary residence and get a heloc? Or if you have a better option. If it matters we have good paying w2 jobs so we could fairly easily pay off the 30k loan in 2 years. I just want to follow J. Scott advice when he says to be careful in case the market turns and have cash ready when it does.

Thanks and keep posting this forum is such a good source of info!