Be advised, a number of banks have closed or severely reduced their HELOC programs.  

Appraisal (if the appraisal that your lender engages (the only one the lender will base your mortgage on) comes in less than the offer price, the seller can reduce his price to the appraised value and all continues on - or you can walk with the return of your escrow; if the seller won't budge and you still want to buy it, you would have to pay the difference between the offer price and appraisal at closing).3. 

If you do a good job you can either do more or bigger deal flow or reduce your cost of capital for a fixed size of deal flow. 

If I can reduce my monthly payments by $200/month, would it make sense to refinance?

I plan on reducing rent 20% or more if there is a surge in vacancies when things go south. 

Seems like a waste of time and energy.  

I think it is a great way to reduce one of your largest monthly expenses, rent if not live rent free.You may be eligible for tax deductions that you were not entitled to before. 

For the time and energy they save you, it's well worth the commissions.Likely too late to go back and do things over now, so I'd recommend really leaning into the license and make the most of it.

Ask the REP (retail energy provider) to set you up with a CSA (continuous service agreement) so that when the tenant moves out it will roll back into your name (you don't want to lose power and have to pay re-connection fees, etc.). 

This will reduce costs to minor park maintenance and taxes.