REFI, HELOC, or new owner-occupied or combination?

[Account Closed]

Hey all, 

Just signed up here, but have been reading and lurking for awhile. Such a pleasant, helpful community here.   I am poised to make my next investment(s), and would love advice on how to move forward as efficiently as possible. Would love to buy several units in the next year. 

The deets:

My partner and I have a home in Portland that we bought for $325k in 2015, and built a detached ADU (1bd/bath apartment) that was finished last summer. We have rented the house since shortly after purchase for $2050/month, and the ADU is rented under market value at $1k/month. So the whole thing flows a bit over $3k/month, and hard costs including mortgage and PM is $1700/month. We owe $250k on it, and it's recently appraised at $500k with the new ADU and the increase in value over the last two years (its inner SE, if you're familiar with Portland).

We are currently living out of the country for nearly a year (academic reasons), and so have the opportunity in returning of buying an owner occupied home with the mortgage incentives that come with that.  We also have the $200k+ equity sitting in the Portland house.  What we don't have at the moment is a lot of liquid cash, but we have excellent credit and consistent employment.  We are self-employed through our own type S corporation. 

How do we best leverage the equity in house? How do we best leverage the fact that we're eligible for an owner occupied mortgage?  Interested only in investing in Oregon/Washington at this point. I have construction skills and would prefer to do my own major rehabs and repairs, even if we do use a PM for the day to day stuff.   

Any creative ideas for us? I want to be really aggressive over the next 5 years of buying and holding as many rental investments as possible.

Thanks in advance.