Va loan experts - Need advice

[Stacie Wells]

Newbie here. Need help with getting started in investment properties using VA loans. My wife and I currently have one rental property in Fort Worth. It was was a primary residence we converted to a rental when we moved to San Antonio. Its on a traditional loan. Not VA. Good equity. Some cash flow. We are one year into a two year lease with tenants.

We bought our current house in SA using my wife's VA loan about three years ago. The house has appreciated nicely but numbers don't look like it will be much cash flow if we tried to rent it out. Maybe even just break even.

Question is, how can we use VA loan to our advantage. We are in process of refinancing with rate reduction loan. Looks like if we do refinance we can use remaining VA benefit to purchase another property and rent this one.

We are thinking about using VA loan to house hack a multi unit (up to 4 units on a VA loan from what we have read) Not sure if we should just sell current house and focus elsewhere. If so no point in paying refinancing costs. If we do refi we will go from 4.25 to 2.25 percent. Hard to pass up on that interest rate. House is appreciating. Maybe wont cash flow now but considering good interest rate and appreciation is it worth holding onto for now and see where it goes?

We are more focused on building long term investment portfolio than current cash flow.  If we sell might get around 30 thousand back from equity after cost of selling. 

Also considering what a pain it would be to coordinate selling one house and trying to purchase another at the same time. Cant use VA loan on next property till we refinance or sell this one. So there would be a period of limbo if we sell. If we refi this will count against debt to income. Dont want to pay closing costs to refi if the numbers say sell.

So thoughts on strategy?  I know there is a way forward.

Much appreciated.