That said, the right team on your side can make the permitting process and inspections far less painful.I’m curious... as you refine your plans, how do you see yourself balancing the home’s original character with these modern upgrades, and which element of the design do you think will win over the pickiest buyers? 

You then draw your HELOC balance as the down payment for the flip.  

The rental market here seems to be cooling and it's hard to pencil deals even if I rent by the room to achieve higher than average rents.

This is the point that in my mind the house has reached a balance point and is stable.

This is often achieved with written documentation, such as a formal ROW request from TxDOT or other correspondence indicating that condemnation proceedings were possible if no settlement was reached.

Pay the balance before it's due. 

What you could doIs continue to pay that loan and have the owner also select finance you the balance.

Sure you could do a money market or put it in an ETF or something, but this is one of the options where the balance "can't" go down or is extremely low risk while making a decent yield.

You have to balance the cost of being below market with turnover costs.

The bids I won, are down payments on property that has "small" balances under $20K but I do not see how this is legit.