A slightly longer POV:
We were fully retired by Jan 1, 2010. Had paid off the mortgage. House worth about $650K. Pension covered all our expenses, plus good discretionary income. Did have a small HELOC: $125K with great terms, paying interest only, balloon payment was due in 23 years. It was closed, already at its limit after a much-needed kitchen/bath updating. Left that loan intact, since even with modest interest fluctuations, it was only costing us about $200/mo. Needless to say, no bank would ever write such a loan nowadays!
So now it's late 2019. We were toying with the idea of selling and moving to a condo rental or senior living facility. But then we discovered a POSSIBLY severe foundation problem. If we were lucky it will be less than $50K, if not, it might easily hit $120K. Remember, this estimate was pre-pandemic/lockdown/supply chain/interest increases!
We decided to take out a very modest mortgage, rather than liquidate out of our portfolio and get hit with income and Medicare taxes. Our CFP firm agreed, and we took out $250K at 2.75% fixed in March 2020. The house appraised at $1.09M at that time - today, Zillow puts it at $992K. Our original purchase price was $140K.
Foundation work was completed (fortunately it was just a small section that needed rebuilding) so the rest will be put to work finishing up other projects. You never know what's going to happen once they open those walls!!
We view it as pulling out some of the equity. We lucked out in getting such a low mortgage rate, and in view of what has happened since, we feel we made the right decision.