Buying Owner Occupied & Qualifying for More Investment Properties

[Jannelle Nevels]

Would love advice on best strategy.

Husband and I bought our first home 13 years ago. It's a two family home. We live upstairs and have always rented out the first floor. We just purchased an investment home, also a 2 family. It is fully rented out, and the cash flow, after all expenses is $1000 a month.

We are planning to continue investing in rental properties and plan to one day purchase apartment building. We have 6 kids and homeschool. We would love to purchase our "forever" home soon, and improve quality of living. Not sure what is the best strategy.

When we move out of this house we can get at least $1200 for the unit we live in. The cash flow for our first home would not be much, maybe $200. We could refinance and improve that situation. 

Questions:

• Would it be difficult to qualify for an owner occupied property? 
• How long do we have to own the second property to use the equity on it? (we have or cash reserves and 401K etc for down payment)
• Would buying our residence make it difficult to qualify for investment properties in the future? The cash we make from our investment properties would be used up on paying for our new house. Is that a problem?
• FYI my husband's income is at least $150,000 (from employment). He has had the same job for more than 16 years, and has excellent credit.