My Dilemma: Refinance my home or sell it?

[Francisco Escobar]

Hey Biggerpockets Community,

I'm a new member, a soon-to-be investor, and a realtor in the Washington DC area. I have a dilemma and thought this would be a great place to get some feedback. Essentially choices that I see are to A) sell my house in order to buy a bigger one we need or B) keep my current home as a rental and get a HELOC to buy the second home.

Background:
I have about 120k in equity on my home, it's 2 blocks from the yellow line metro, 10 minutes from Amazon's recently announced "National Landing" so I expect it to appreciate.  I have an interest rate of 3.125% and my monthly costs on the mortgage are about $1500.  I think it could rent out for 1800 monthly pretty easily.  That's some cash flow, but it's not as good as some of the deals I'm hearing about on biggerpockets.

If I decide to sell, my next door neighbor has already offered to buy the house from me, and I expect I'd get to keep most of that 120k in equity.  It'd be enough to get to 20% down for the next house.

The HELOC might get me to 10% down, it has its own cost and my monthly payments would be more expensive for the new home.

Next Home: For the price range I'm looking at for my next home, my down payment will make the difference (in principle and interest rate) between a comfortable monthly payment around 2500 or a stretch at over 3000. This isn't a luxury home, it's an average, middle class single family home in the area.  

So from a financial independence perspective, I think I'd be better off selling my home, and keeping my mortgage payment more comfortable.  But from the perspective of an investor, I think keeping my current home is pretty attractive.   

Should I be agressive and try to hold both?  This is the easiest way I could be an investor and landlord now (which is a goal of mine)

Should I be defensive and keep things easier on my budget?  

Thanks!