Personally I would never go past inspection period without stepping foot in the property.

I am not a licensed GC but I have experience building spec homes that I could show a bank Fine paying a higher interest rate on the construction period of the loan, but would like to be more in line with traditional mortgages rates on the perm portion (although fine paying slightly higher if I avoid closing costs for a second loan)Do y’all have any recommendations on specific types of loans for this or specific banks I should talk to?

No seasoning period.

HELOC money is expensive money... so i think you need to take another look at the expenses and make sure you're including all of them - not just PITI.and you may know this, but i'll remind you - HELOC payments are usually interest only for the first few years during the draw period. 

This is the honeymoon period, doesn't get any better than this. 

I would say compare terms, seasoning period requirements (Assuming when you mentioned construction loan you're talking about a rehab project), response time of your rep, learn as much about their loan underwriting and approval process as you can.

Same thing applies to property management.No one will manage your property the way you do - period!

Unfortunately, this was likely an inevitable outcome and cost over a multiple decade period of risk exposure...along with not getting appraisal value for the illegal unit when you sell.

Then I had 2 fridges die within about a 3 month period.

Is it easy to accomplish within a short period of time like within a couple months?