FHA on pri res. Want to hack duplex while keeping cash to invest

[Alfred Harrison]

Hello all,

My fiancée and I have a SFH through FHA, which we bought almost two years ago. We're trying to get into real estate investing and start by hacking a duplex. We want to keep as much cash as possible so that we can invest in rental properties within the next year or less.

Being that we already have an FHA out on our current primary residence, we're kind of limited to a conventional 20% down payment on a second residence (i.e. the duplex). Our current home isn't really rentable; at least not to a point that it would cover our mortgage and taxes. If anything, we could rent it out and probably have to still pay a couple hundred per month.

The idea is to get the duplex, move into one unit and rent out the other so that we can accelerate our savings. Then, make enough improvements to our SFH to get some appreciation and sell it (hopefully, at a profit). We're trying to BRRRR invest going forward as a long-term cash flow strategy as well as complete some minor flips along the way for more immediate cash generation to fund new deals.

Does anyone have any ideas where we can hold on to as much of our cash as possible, while acquiring a duplex, given our current scenario?

Thank you all.