Essential items are things like medicine, medical equipment, important documents or such. 

Ultimately my goal is to be financially independent from medicine so that I can practice as much or as little as I want.

I believe the home prices in Philly are artificially inflated right now because of said competition. 

(sorry for those caps, I may be channeling James for a minute :lol: ) The runup from 2000 to 2006 was artificial and unsustainable.

I think you'll get a better rate, and the mortgage will force you to pay off principle monthly where the HELOC is typically interest only.You will also be artificially lowering your cost of ownership by having a I/O HELOC on the house, causing you to think it cash flows better than it really does.

I don't like the idea of balloons; it sets up an artificial date that a huge amount has to be called due and payable and the person may not be in a financial position to pay it off by then.If the person was able to refinance at some point in the future, that would be great for them. 

Also be careful there are some sold prices that are artificial.

Moreover, you'd need to make money in the US first and it's no secret that, in many places (including many of the most visited places by STR renters), real estate prices have been propped up to unsustainable by artificially low interest rates.

I find that around bases, rent is artificially anchored around BAH for the area.

Any lot owner man gauge and of the following business within the residence medicine log counting engineering computer cell's General cell's merchandising- if in fact you are leasing less than the entire home to a people who are not a single family unit with the term less than a month to month you in violation of restriction of HOA.However, I thought that I have two longterm quest with mailing addresses there which would prove something.