I've never owned a property that went up enough in value to pay for the cost of the re-fi plus give me enough equity to make it worth the effort. 

I don't have enough money down to put 20% on a new house, so I need to do a heloc, or cash-out re-fi.

Originally posted by @Eric F.:I

@Sheila F. I

Semper Fi!  

Maybe think about postponing the "dream" home now for a better dream home in five years.Here is a link to some such homes for sale currently in Greenville:http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Greenville-SC...I know nothing about your area, so I'll leave it to you to decide if the location of those properties is acceptable to you or not. 

If you find a value add deal, where there is an opportunity to make improvements and  increase the value of the building, a re-fi may liberate the borrowed down payment.  

Do hard money and re-fi out of it?

Since you already own the property many banks will (regardless of ownership length) treat it as a re-fi. 

FI with a huge buffer for law suits, life changes, health issues, etc.