Good strategies with HELOC usage for first rental?

[Stephen Miracle]

Hey all! My wife and I just set up a HELOC for our current house. We've been followers of biggerpockets for a few years and know that using your HELOC or a Home Equity Loan are common methods for purchasing a future property which we're looking to do in 2023.

My question is what are some good tips if we went this route? I'm not sure if the goal would be to use it for a down payment, pay for the whole house instead of hard money loan with BRRR method, or another strategy?

Our long-term goals are to use Real Estate to diversify our portfolio. We are considering a vacation home to AirBnb but could be convinced to purchase a place for a long-term rental first.

Anyway, thanks for any advice in regards to the HELOC usage. We're not actively using it at the moment and I'm just curious about the smart approach to using one.