FHA Strategy - Losing to cash offers

[Steven Barr]

We are trying to buy our first rental but keep losing to all cash offers on the sub $400k houses.

We have decided the best course of action now would be to go to Ribbon and pay the 1% fee to get cash for a cash offer. Then, we would finance with a 3.5% down FHA loan. From there, we plan to raise rents and get an appraisal to increase value of the property to give us 80% LTV and then refinance to a conventional mortgage to qualify for a 1031 exchange into our next property (if appraisal didn't give us quite 80% LTV, we would just put more of our own cash in to get us there)

Experienced investors…. Is this a good/viable strategy? If not, what should we consider doing to start winning deals?

Thanks so much!