You will also start paying down more of your principal and in those 10 years rates could fall giving you an opportunity to refinance. 

refinance our own home with some money down + purchase another flip? 

Set up a Joint account with the seller so you can make deposits to continue the automatic payments to the lender until you refinance the property.Thanks,Dustin

When they do, you can refinance to a lower rate.Dealing with current high interest rates (about 7% on 01/27/2025) you have the following choices:A larger down paymentAccept a negative cash flowBuy down the interest rateCombine and balance all three to get an acceptable cash flow today.

Until the rates come down to refinance, the key for us is to limit the amount of turnover at the properties. 5K to 10K in rehab basically eats away at several years of cashflow.

You don't need to know everything to get started; you need a foundation to build on, and the rest will come through experience and then refining your education.You can build a basic understanding of investing in 3-6 months.

And then do a cash out refinance of the debt free property. 

Sara,I see this a lot and I always ask if you know you are going to refinance in the long run to consolidate the Heloc why not just do a Cash out refinance instead. 

@Timothy Frazier Yes, the only reason to use HML as a down payment is if the property is "mostly turnkey" AND you don't have the funds to renovate AND you have strong CMA comps from a real estate agent that supports that the fact that you are buying a property that is under valued AND your renovations would push that so that you could refinance.

If you are trying to continue holding the other two properties then you should pull out some equity in the form or a cash out refinance on one or both or use a portfolio loan as @Jimmy Murray suggested.