2nd Home Purchase and need advice

[Archie Candy]

I am in process of buying my second home which I plan to move into.We first bought our first house in 2012 for low 200's in suburbs of Nashville TN.Now the house is worth 440k.Balance on mortgage is 162k.The second home will be a new build in 500k range.My husband makes about 85k per yr.I want to start off investing in reral estate to have a cushion for kids education and retirement.At this point,our lender mentioned that hubby will be approved for 500k mortgage at 3.125% with 10% down.Provided the present home also rents out and we have a lease of 1 yr signed.We have all this set up.He also mentioned we can look into heloc.How do we do that.I have no idea about it and dont want to do it ignorance.I also plan to buy another home for investment asap after we move into second home.I am a SAHM and will be for quite some time.Any advice?Is Heloc a good option to pay off the first morgage and then use the rent to pay the Heloc.Rents in our area will be about 2000 per month for our house.Any advice.