Complicated "Get Started" Scenario - Newbie

[Kimberlee Lorenz]

Hello Everyone,

I am a newbie REI, having taken some time to lick my wounds after making some grave mistakes a few years back. I've been enjoying my BP education so far -- so much quality advice! Hopefully someone will tackle my dilemma and possibly point me in the right direction. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

I am trying to figure out the best place to start, as my family (active-duty USAF husband, and 3-yr old son) and I are relocating to San Antonio (SA), TX this May after 3 years living overseas in Germany.

My goal is to create a $5,000/month (or close to it) cash flow during the minimum 4 years we will be living in San Antonio, then recreate the same scenario to our next duty location. I realize these are big goals, but I figure you gotta start somewhere!

Here is a breakdown of our scenario:

(1) Cash = $160,000; $60,000 of which is spread over various investment accounts (TSP, Roths, & Trad. IRA).

(2) Credit - since I have a ch. 7 which cleared in 2009 and have not worked in 3 years, my husband will be the only borrower. However, he had an FHA short sale from WFB that closed in 2010, which limits us on the type of loan we can procure (VA - 2 yrs from short sale; FHA - 3yrs; conventional - 4yrs).

Max. VA loan approval at 0% financing through USAA = $408,600.

We have tried to obtain preapprovals through 2 other brokers without success. One broker said that his banks treat FHA short sales the same as VA, so we would need a full three years before they would consider lending to us (Oct. 2013).

(3) Property type - we have been considering duplexes or 4-plexes, but the cash flow and Cap. Rates just don't seem to work out. I'm wondering if I'm calculating it wrong, because it seems unlikely that anyone would invest in these properties in SA with numbers like these.

(4) Location - as is commonplace everywhere, the best deals are in "less" desirable areas that we would not be willing to live -- in the case of buying an MFR and living in one unit. Our son has special needs, so schools are important. Additionally, we just learned the "hard" way about the expansive soils so prevalent throughout most of SA.

Thank you all in advance for taking the time to read my post and consider any advice you may decide to give me.

~ K. Lorenz