Or 4 to 5% and no points, maybe the cost of an appraisal, and a month or two to finish it up, for a HELOC.  

Other options presented to me is a long flip where i get a traditional loan for a new property 203k FHA and live in that for a year then transition to the other after I’m finished the occupation requirement to sell.Is there any other way I can use the equity in my home to both fix my current home and fix and flip in another??

What I can recommend is reading the free LEED for Homes guidelines on USGBC's website as well as other green home ratings such as Enterprise green communities and Earthcraft.

thanks for everyone's input, greatly appreciated. while I agree from a buyer's perspective the house will look better after everything is cleaned up, does everyone think by putting it on the market before the clean up has finished I am putting it in a negative light that may affect sales even after the clean up is done ? 

Chris, I haven’t used First United for a duplex, but do have experience working with them on traditional mortgages and to be honest I’m not surprised they got their info wrong, their knowledge and customer service isn’t the best (and their website isn’t user friendly at all) I would definitely talk to other banks.

This is a quote for the cities website.

Well I feel like I made full circle and I’m back to wanting to jump into real estate and she is on board this time around and I just finished Brandon’s book finally!

I would plug your scenario in to Scottsman Guide's website and call a few of those groups.

Three years later, I was finishing the remodel and a new leak started.  

@Marvin Barrera you can typically go to a local real estate agency's website and they'll have a search engine you can use to look at "for sale" listings on the mls.