In short, it has expanded my horizons and allowed me to gain insights into areas and property types that I would have never dealt with in absence of my broker's license.If your trajectory is like mine, and your primary goal is to be an investor(and you have the income and/or capital to support your initial foray into investing,) then I'd suggest honing your investment skills first, and getting your license second.

For deals like these do you just take an interest only refi, for the partner takeout, to lengthen the time horizon with a longer call?

This was pre-Beltline, pre-PCM, pre-H4WP, etc... but all of those projects were either in the infancy of their planning phases or at least rumored to be on the horizon.

If I do not, I invest it in the stock market. 6 months or less is sort of my time horizon where I do not want to let the value of that cash drop in the market if I know I am going to need soon.

It also depends on where you are on your investing horizon.

I don't think there's any 'right' answer to your question, because it depends on how comfortable you are investing from afar, your skills, how much money you have to invest, your goals and time horizon.

IRR is a metric that is used to compare different investments with different payout structure and time horizons.

All my 30-year fixed rate loans are sub 4.3% and I hope, with a 30+ year horizon, that will be a big boon in the future (especially as inflating our way out of the national debt becomes America's only option).Thanks again for all the input.

This ignores the time value of money, but it is a quick and easy decision and the time value doesn't distort the decision much since the time horizon is very short.

I think the risk of using it comes down to your time horizon (due to the variable nature of the product), and the ROI using the interest you are paying as part of the calculation.If you are using the HELOC to BRRRR or Flip, I think it is an excellent way to get started because your payback time horizon is relatively short.