Thank you for all your replies. I am learning a lot here and loving it. I did not know about the difference between equity in your IP and accessible equity so thank you Corey for defining that.

The $20-30k equity I mentioned does turn out to be accessible equity (yay!). My bank has a feature in my online banking that shows the amount of equity in your property that they deem “accessible” and it is a smaller amount than if I calculated property value minus loan amount.

Structure wise I will need to do more thinking about as I have not considered any tax implications such as the ones mentioned by Pimobpi but I am clearer on knowing I do want to move on locking in that accessible equity sooner than later thanks to this discussion thread.