Continue to Rent or Sell? Aurora, CO

[Ken Kurobane]

Hello fellow BPeers!  

I own a single family rental in Aurora, CO that cash flows $300/month. I bought the house in Sept 2016 for 225K with an fha loan @ 3.375% and lived there for 2 years before moving to my current house.  The property is worth about 285K and I owe 200K.

I'm a newbie to investing and I would like to scale my rental portfolio quickly.  I'm interested in using other people's money to brrrr properties, but my understanding is that these types of loans require a substantial cash reserve which I don't have :(  I can resolve that by selling my rental, however that is one of the two options I'm having trouble deciding between in order to move forward.  I think my next purchase will be a du-tri-quadplex which I'll house hack and here's what I have in mind:

a) Sell the rental and then have the proceeds(~70k) become my cash reserve to qualify for private or hard money to brrrr a property.

b) Or keep the rental and refi out of the fha keeping the same interest(verified), and then use a fha203k to brrr a property.

I like a) because I figure the sooner I get comfortable using creative financing, the sooner I can scale up, but I like b) because it seems like a safer step and I won't lose a rental.  As much as I'd like to avoid seller's remorse, I will let it go if selling my rental for a cash reserve will give me an advantage to scale up quicker.  But ideally, I'd like to hold on to the rental and find an alternative means to fund the next project.  

I was initially leaning towards selling the house, but now I'm on the fence.  I imagine there are several solutions that can provide a happy compromise so if anybody can shed some light, any advice will be greatly appreciated.   

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.  Cheers.

Ken