Newbie investor looking for advise/help

[Paul Meiners]

Hello. I am a newbie wanna be real estate investor looking to buy more property. I really want to use the Brrrr method to be able to cash out refinance and scale, but with interest rates and low inventory here in CT I'm unsure if I should do this for now. Currently, I own a duplex, which my partner and I rent out the top floor, and live in the bottom floor. We have 5 children. 17,16,13, and twin 17month old's. The 13 and 16 year old share a decent sized room. The 17 year old has a smaller bedroom, and the twins have our old dining room, but will eventually need a bigger room. Our goal is to move out, rent the bottom unit, and find a single family that can fit us all comfortably. However, we would like to secure some more duplex's or triplex's before this and then use the hopeful cashflow to pay for some of the single family mortgage if this is the best route to take, or should we go straight to single family since their is such low supply. My partner has the deed of the house in her name, which makes me eligible for a FHA or FHA 203k, which I would like to use to force appreciation, but not sure in this market or with my experience if I should or not. We both work full time on top of this. I make between 150-175k and my partner makes about 40k, but is currently going to school and pursuing my same career, which she could potentially be making 100k in 2.5-3 years. Our mortgage is 2,600 a month. The tenant pays $1400 a month. Our unit we live in now could easily go for 2k a month. Long story, but by the end of the year our mortgage will be at roughly 2k a month. We have 10k in savings and about 40K in equity in the house. We have about 50-60k combined in student loan and credit card debt. I wanted to give the full picture of our situation for the most specific advise. Thank you!