Living in one unit and renting out the other helps you scale quickly because you need a lower down payment for a primary residence. 

If married you can exclude $250,000 each in capital gains if your primary residence.  

We’re debating whether to sell our first primary residence or keep it as a rental.

Furthermore, some lenders have rate lock protection from their secondary market buyer, which means the buyer has to legally honor the rate.

Our other rentals in completely different areas, we have a duplex in Penfield (east side suburb, our primary residence) and a duplex in the south wedge.

Investment Info:Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Hoarding is a protected class because it is a disability. 

The easiest and straight forward option would be, as you said, to sell the current residence, payoff the HELOC (or most of it) and then get back to saving with your jobs and the rental cashflow.

A house hack for a primary residence for about two years and then you could repeat this again. 

I would want to see the invoice and have a chat with the PM about their responsibility to protect my income.