Rents went down in 2017 and pretty much stayed flat.

You found one that will, and maybe those fees help them "stay in the green" on their balance sheets for those loan sizes. 

Get ready for a fun and fulfilling journey - the obstacle is the way, stay with it!

As long as you stay within the guardrails of this general strategy and consult proper legal and professional advice along the way you will be fine--Again with my post, and I may get flak for saying this, but a lot of people are actually hurting you more than helping by saying that you need to have everything figured out before you get started.

I will stay persistent.

.- They claim that their verbal termination doesn't count and that they can stay until the end of September because I haven't received a written notice to terminate.How should I handle this?

Any more might be too much, but that could be a personal preference.If your house is a 3/2 one-story ranch with no basement, than ALL your comps should be a 3/2 one-story ranches with no basement.Regarding age of home, I really like to stay under 9-10 years at most if possible. 

Also what's your market look like by the time this comes online, will rents stay the same or drop because of excess new inventory?

I look forward to crossing paths (maybe at one of the meet ups mentioned above).I’d love to stay in touch and share our experiences as we both learn and grow in real estate investing.

Or, if you're happy to stay living there, but want as much immediately accessible cash in your pocket as a Lender would approve, you'd need to make sure your newly acquired investor mindset was in full bargain hunting / return-on-investment mode, because, your monthly repayments will increase significantly once you withdraw the maximum against a HELOC!