It’s not going to do you much good if you pull a bunch of equity out and increase your payment (likely with a higher interest rate) and the paymentand expenses are higher than what you’d receive for rent. 

This will increase your success rate at getting estimates and will be less time for you to meet them. 

Also, keep in mind that a condo comes with HOA fees that can increase in the future, eating into some or possibly all of your cash flow.

Once I retire in a week, and get the 457 money, it will give me roughly 80% of the down payment.I'll probably use a bit of my existing HELOC to get the rest of the down payment.I could ask my credit union about increasing my HELOC so I could use that to cover all of the down payment. 

For me the issue isn't so much using our equity as increasing the $ we have going to a larger mortgage each month, rather to savings/investment.

Being a renter, myself, for several years, I would not even consider month-to-month as I do not want the potential for moving expenses, rent increases, etc., if landlord decides to change the terms 2-3 months in. 

If you're interested in new construction, you may consider getting in very early on in a newer community near Samsung to get some of the benefit from the regular price increases moving forward while they continue to build it out over the next year(s).Of course, all that depends on how the rental numbers look for you in each area. 

I really need to increase the rent by 18% in order to meet my ROI numbers and to get closer to the market.

I believe the UGB will have expanded somewhat but the available land will still be limited when compared to demand causing an increase in price.

The tax is on the gain in the value of the land, and if you're doing a rehab or a flip, the land itself generally doesn't increase much.