I'm in the same boat for reference- I bought into the "buy now, refi later" idea and am sitting on a 7.375% on my latest property acquisition and a commercial line of credit I have is at prime + 1 (so 8.5%).

They have assisted us with setting up our LLC's for our Flips and Buy and Holds. 

Investment Info:Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

I would suggest you do both of what you suggest - meaning get either a new mortgage (more conservative route) or HELOC on the townhome and use those funds to buy your next investment property.

I wanted to be able to help educate people, especially the underserved community, about real estate, whether buying, selling, and assisting with the process of foreclosures and short sales.

That way whenever you do find a deal you'll already have a list of buyers that are ready to buy and get a deal done. 

Often they like to ultimately buy their properties and will pay over market value so they don’t have to uproot the established program to stay in the home they’ve been renting.

Generally most fix flippers are buying at 80%-82% in our market. 

Once you can define what you are looking for then you can create your "Buy Box". 

as a flipper, with the participation of a wholesaler and a hard money lender, what actions should I take BEFORE I close and buy a house (tell me step by step please because i dont really understand the sequence of events) and also please tell me when to do due diligence to make sure how much does it cost to renovate the house and is it worth buying this house?