HELOC to fund down payment for hard money loan?

[Richard Gonzales]

I’m very new to investing. I bought a duplex last year as a house hack. It has taken me longer than I’d hoped to get the downstairs unit ready to rent, but it’s finally ready. After purchase, I saved up and payed for the downstairs rehab with cash. The upstairs, where I live, needs a bathroom and kitchen remodel to get the rental income I’m looking for and I don’t have the cash needed to do it.

I really want to scale up and get my next property so I’ve been looking into my options. I had an idea today and would like some opinions.

I'm in a very hot market and with the remodel I did downstairs, I should have quite a bit of new equity. The idea is to get a HELOC on my current residence, use that HELOC to get a hard money loan to purchase a distressed property, BRRRR it and use the equity in the new property to pay off the HELOC and fund the remodel in my current house hack. Then refinance my current property to BRRRR more new properties. My other idea is to use the HELOC to finish the renovations on my current property. I would like to keep my homestead tax credit through this process. Thoughts?