I feel terrible walking away...but i was under incredible stress (not sleeping and eating like crap) trying to figure it out and make the quotes work by paring back finishes.

Better than any other data + dialer combination I have ever heard from anyone.There is a 7 day free trial.

Especially combined with the high interest rates right now. 

Your best/safest bet would be a regular lease combined with an option to purchase.

If you do have large gains you’re allowed to combine them as mentioned above.

Is any bank offering a HELOC based on the combined equity?

And while yes, no one has the same pricing (combination of factors), I also continue to check on a regular basis our rankings and how we "present" on total costs per stay vs. our competitors.My gut says there is price creep and we might have a ways to go before the market really corrects.

. - So, recommend having that first hire document the crap out of what you want them to do.

It's a fairly unregulated space (charging grandma $750 to puts around for 3 hours, after moving the old box from the horizontal sensor, which was the only problem with the garage door to begin with), so some combination of carefully reading reviews (you have to actually read them to make sure it's not 200 fake reviews), and maybe not giving them the full contract all at once, is in order. 

Shop LTV (or cLTV which is combined Loan To Value, basically your first mortgage and 2nd mortgage combined loan to value), rates, payment terms, time to close,  and draw period (how long you can go into and out of your heloc).