Investing: Line of Credit or Hard Money Loan

[Rodney Marcantel]

We're obtaining a line of credit against one of our homes to invest in our RE business. Both homes we own have no mortgage. Our home is worth $425K and our investment home is worth $245K. We will secure line of credit against our $425K home as we know we can get more to work with over the investment home. Our goal with this is to use for earnest money to purchase properties (get them under contract) but not to use for full mortgage on an investment home if we're flipping it but rather use hard money (1 - 3 % monthly) for the "mortgage".

My question is, would it be better to use our HELOC for the short term "mortgage" or the hard money? You hear about protecting your assets and personal liability/risk, so which is better? What do most investors do? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks.