I assumed that shopping around for the best interest rate would be good enough.

With the current mortgage rate constraints affecting how many buyers are willing to enter the market we are seeing a lot of borrowers have success with the BRRRR strategy with plans to sell in the next 3-5 years when interest rates go down.Researching potential LTR and STR rental amounts and seeing if holding for a few years is a viable option is a good analysis to do well. 

However, what I don't know is how long have you been in your home (how much equity do you have in the home) and what is your current interest rate.  

HELOCs are usually variable rate and there may be yearly fees associated with maintaining the HELOC.

For further context, we are trying to have him be the name on the loan because he would be able to utilize his first time home buyer loan to take advantage of the lowered offered interest rate.

The Fed raised rates and dropped the values of those T-Bills.

What is the appreciation, condition, community, class level and vacancy rates?

Maybe they are trying to annoy people with low rate mortgages on purpose to get them to refinance (conspiracy theory alert)?

🏡 Real Estate Market Report (Single-Family Homes)📊 Mortgage Rates:30-Year Conventional: 7.10%30-Year VA: 6.45%💰 Median Sales Price:October: $485,000November: $484,995December: $484,500📈 New Listings:October: 1,959November: 1,498December: 1,175📅 Median Days on Market:October: 22 daysNovember: 24 daysDecember: 29 days📦 Months Supply of Inventory:October: 3.3 monthsNovember: 3.2 monthsDecember: 2.7 months🤔 What Does "Months Supply of Inventory" Mean?

I got bit a couple years ago and went from a 6% rate to almost 10% rate.