Before a final decision is made we go to the county recorder & do our own title searches to confirm ALL liens & judgments 

You must rent out your property or pay a fine!

Send them a final statement per law and indicate whether they owe additional or not.

Also, don't close without doing a final walk of the property and finding it in the condition you expected/deserve.  

Basically not ruling anything out, we will see how the rehab goes, crunch the numbers, and then make a final decision.Thanks for the reply!

., starting conversations like this is how you get closer to a fine grain understanding of what's really going on, I'll be alright. 

Find a good building inspector to go over the house with a fine tooth comb, then you'll know what you're dealing with.

Appreciate the advice on the financing, we are going to talk to lenders and family/partners as our next step and simultaneously running numbers again to squeeze this as much as possible before making a final decision.

During my last two seller appointments, the sellers actually advised me that they were speaking to five different homebuyers here in Tucson and getting multiple offers before making a final decision. 

If you pay down your HELOC, you may find later you will not have access to that money2) This is a fine way to buy real estate.