I am planning on not resigning my lease and starting of my RE venture. 

This could easily cost you $10’s of thousands if you plan to stay in the home 5+ years when you return. 

You need to make a written plan with him to get this over the finish line, with cost estimates.

Would love to hear what you’re focused on or planning!

Owning a home also gives you stability (ie your landlord can't decide to sell your home), flexibility to do what you want to with the home and the money you are paying is paying down your mortgage, not your landlord's.One other question is do you plan on moving anytime soon? 

You haven't told us anything about what you plan to do after purchasing the property, so it's not clear how important interest rate is in the long run. 

I plan to use a HELOC but would be interested in the thoughts of others in BPs on this approach or recommendations if there are other ways to financing that I should consider.

If you don't plan on allowing 4+ cats in your rental in the future you shouldn't start now.

What’s the plan?

We just love the country and plan to visit often and figured why not expand our business into Japan.