Meaning any of your Helocs can be closed or reduced at any point if any of your banks feel you are over leveraged, miss a payment, credit score drops, even by mistake it happens all the time.I would get rid of the Helocs and put some cash in your bank so you can use that versus a Heloc. 

Unless you can get the price significantly reduced, walk away Tim!

If funds for the program are reduced or eliminated it would create a national housing crisis, so generally it just gets carried at about the same level each year.Yes, local governments run out of funds which is why they close their lists or the wait time is very long. 

do you guys prefer to only invest in newer homes  i.e. built after a certain year to reduce the possibility of having to do a lot of reno on wiring, plumbing, etc. or does it just depend on seeing the house and determining the condition that its in?

We also were able to get the property taxes reduced by filing a complaint with the county.

.- Getting under contract and then reducing the price because of findings is common, but major reductions are likely to tick off the seller unless you have strong justification.

Burdened with a vulnerable and helpless feeling, I agreed to accept ABC Baltimore’s reduced offer of $95k and closed the buy—back with ABC (we still had to pay closing costs).

-Should I reduce my price offering? 

I start with market rent or a little less to reduce vacancy.

Using your $100K example, the 6% seller assist is far more valuable to this buyer than merely reducing the purchase price by $6K because the 6% seller assist is a $6,000 reduction in funds required to close whereas reducing the purchase price by $6K equates to less than a $200 savings (2.5% down payment + some incidentals).