Buying a new house and a rental property. What should I do?

[Trina Hanks]

I am wanting to buy rental propety and move to a better location. I'm trying to figure out what is the best way to do this. I know the best and less risky way to do this is buy a rental property and live in one unit and rent the others. However, the only rental properties I  an afford around here are in lower income areas. I forgot to mention that I have 2 young kids, one that started kindergarten this year. So the school districts in these areas are not so good. 

In the house we own now, we have about $30k in equity that we can borrow from. I was thinking that I could use the equity from this house for a down payment on another house. I could get a FHA laon on the new house so I will have some left over to make a down payment on a rental property. Is this crazy talk? Can this be done?

I would rental out the house we live in now. However, we would probably just break even on it. I was thinking just renting it out for a year and then selling it and then using the equity we get from selling to use as a down payment when we refiance the new house. The rental properties I'm looking at are 4plexes and I could possible get one for $90k. I calculated that the monthly cash flow would be around $400. 

I'm looking for any kind of guidance on this. I'm just trying to get in the real estate investing game as soon as i can. Thank you for any advise you can give me!