get qualified for your take out on the refi before you get over your ski tips.. risk is a retrench in values and your heloc gets frozen or called.. 

Then I decided I didn't want to deal with snow and frozen pipes, hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. 

@Victor BradfordI would sell and invest in MN (twin cities) We have a bustling real estate economy and you will find use of the equity here.Welcome to the frozen North!

I wouldn't ruin my credit for 250 bucks a month.I highly doubt it would take 10 years to reach a payoff you could handle.A residential recovery and workout of toxic loans is at max about 3 years away on a national level with some areas performing and recovering much faster.Why not go to the bank and say rents have gone down and I am struggling.Ask for them to renew the next time at 3 or 4% interest.That will make the gap smaller and go up in rent just a little but not much.Yes insolvency will wipe out any 1099 phantom gain as long as your liabilities exceed your assets.Most local banks all have you sign a personal guarantee.They consider it YOUR WORD as a vice president has told me that you will honor your contract (one of my clients short selling an apartment).The bank said at that time they DID NOT want to short sale and favored instead writing the interest rate down and extending the loan another year at a frozen rate and see what happens.Banks do not want to DUMP everything like people believe.They only cut out properties they see as having no chance of a recovery in the future or a liability if the took back (war zone,environmental issues).In that case they will usually sell the note if it has environmental issues or they don't want to foreclose.I would try the options I have above instead of ruining credit.

They can be cancelled or frozen, but not called.

He's positive he will be a multimillionaire (if he isn't already), he's positive he'll achieve every dream he wants and he's positive he's going to run into some frozen pips and bad tenants on the way that needs dealing with.

I would MUCH rather be there than in the frozen tundra.

I also asked what the balance was in the frozen account, the woman said it was a negative over 850 million dollars.

I haven't heard about REO sales being frozen.

Then, the money is not in the HELOC account and can't be frozen by the lender.Where else can you find money that cheap??