My current home: sell, rent, or... ?

[Patrick Isaac]

Hello everyone!  I'm new to real estate investing and I am considering using the equity in my existing home to start out.  My current home value is between $350-370k and I have a mortgage balance of $142k.  I estimate that I could rent out my existing home for about $1750/ month.  I have been considering the following options:

1)  Refinance my home and rent it out.  Purchase a fixer upper, move in, rehab.  Repeat.

2)  Sell my existing home.  Purchase a multifamily property and live in one of the residences there.

I don't feel that the current BP calculators quite match my situation and I want to be as thorough as possible when I figure out which path is best.  I don't suppose anyone out there has a spreadsheet or some other guideline that they would lend me to help in my analysis?  Or perhaps there is an alternate path for me to consider?

Thank you for any help/suggestions!