.- When I bought the house, I renovated the apartment and it is currently being rented out.- My question is do I do a cash out refinance or take out a HELCO (the mortgage broker I used originally advised that)?

Then once you close on the house take out a standard 30 year mortgage to pay off the hard money loan?

If I were still single, I would have definitely considered purchasing a 2-4 unit property to house hack.

Our 3 options are: A- buy cheap housing in small college town.

Those offers never came, one was supposed to be from an affordable housing nonprofit that had access to 4.5% financing, but they put us on ice for a few months while we waited for their slow board aproval process, and then they had some sort of organizational staffing shakeup and recently told us they couldnt put an offer in.

House was booked for the majority of June and July is looking to be the same.

However, you would have to make sure that you have been living on your current primary house for at least a year before acquiring your next primary purchase.

I would say that house hacking is a great option to consider. 

Tampa and my 3/1 house in Seminole Heights.

Are there alternative ways to sell a house?