Zero balance heloc for DTI

[Daniel Kirk]

Hi BP, I saw a few threads on this from some years back, but just wanted to get some up to date advice.
We own a primary and a secondary house. I was going to put a heloc on the secondary and use it as a potential source of short term funds for future real estate purchases. We'd like do the strategy of moving our primary to the newly purchased house, so it would not be for an investment property. Anyways, I read that some lenders consider a zero balance heloc against the DTI calculation and some don't. Does anyone have any advice for how to approach this? I think we're set on the heloc, but I just don't want it to shoot us in the foot for future purchases, especially if the balance is zero and somehow that counts against us. Thanks for the help!