I'd like to put as much as I can to work in order to reach financial independence sooner. 

Pros: pay off mortgage sooner, one account for everything (all cash + deposits + expenses are paid from the HELOC)Cons: higher interest expense, higher opportunity cost (putting all your cash into the HELOC means you aren't investing it into other things that could yield higher returns)

At least that way, in the event you never get your entire principal back (targeted within 5 years, although they'll make a best efforts attempt to get you out sooner penalty-free after 12 months (slight penalties months 1-6 and 6-12)), they still got to collect their management fee along the way.  

She talked to Lee who said I should have let him know sooner and that he would send his contractor out to look things over.

I would check with Dennis Kahn at Homestead Mortgage or another popular mortgage broker here, Zach Starnes or there are several other lenders that can re-fi off appraised value much sooner than 1 yr.

My realtor is reaching out to local lenders now to ask questions so I'll see what they tell me directly but I'd rather buy more sooner than later if we can.

So instead of living in regret of not buying sooner or waiting for things to magically be better, I figured out how to make it work still.

It also gets you into real estate sooner and lets you start gaining experience as a landlord.

Payments are fixed, so if you pay down principal, you pay the loan off sooner. 

For the couple hundred in extra 'cash flow' you get by doubling a payment's term, I'd much rather be done with it sooner.