I have tried going through the conventional route of HELOC and Home Equity Loan for my primary residence.

Wtf.It's a duplex that I have a primary Va loan on in my personal name.

The tax credit is for primary residences and commercial.

Then I bought a bigger condo for our primary residence in 2022 for 275k with a conventional mortgage (5% down,1.5% APR).

We have a few of these in our primary home.

-We are closing on a primary residence in a couple of weeks that has a cottage on it that we will begin short/mid term renting upon close. 

I would strongly recommend looking at the BiggerPockets lender finder since all those lenders are familiar with the investor mindset even if this is for a primary residence :)https://www.biggerpockets.com/business/finder/lenders

I own the home but I do not live there as my primary residence. 

You can always start off in real estate by acquiring a property as a primary residence.

Since you'll be able to put less down on the primary you should still have plenty of cash to buy another single family home as a rental.