Newbie here needing lots of advice

[Rebekah Noriega]

Hi! My husband and I are looking to buy property in Austin, TX. The primary purpose of this purchase is to be a summer vacation home for us to spend summers with our kids there and then short term lease it throughout the year. We have very little accessible savings but we have combined over $300k in 401k assets and about $200k in equity in our current house (still paying a mortgage). We both have jobs in Houston we arent looking to leave, we just want someone else to help up pay for a second home away from home. If renting this property goes well, we definitely have intention to continue to buy more property but our initial goal is to just purchase a vacation home. With this background, here comes all the questions:

1. Is it worth tapping into our 401k and getting a loan?

2. Is is better to tap into our home equity for a loan? 

3. Should we just stick to conventional loans (as our 2nd loan/2nd house I assume we have to put 20% down)? Im not familiar with DSCR loans but since we plan to live in it 1/4th of the year would we even qualify?

4. Is it better to get a multi fam home so we dont have to "move out" every summer or is a single family home better/more appealing for renting? 

5. Location is seeming hard to find good deals due to how high walkability is on my must have lists. Would it be better to buy cheap somewhere else, rent it out for a few years, then sell it (or keep it) but use that earned income to buy a more desirable location for our summer home? Or since we are willing to put some of our own money into it as we plan to use it ourselves some too, just go ahead and buy where we want from the start?

Thanks for any advice!