Needing help in creating Purchasing when moving across country

[Eric Dietrich]

My wife and I are working towards moving across the country to be closer to family. We BRRRR'd a duplex and seen crazy appreciation in the last two years since we purchased. We refinanced, however, due to the crazy politics of where we live, the idea of long-term cross-country ownership seems foolhardy. As we have some reserves and where we are moving to, we could potentially buy multiple properties with said reserves, even before doing a 1031 or 121, what do you believe is better of the following scenarios:

1) Wait for a remote or local job in the area and then buy a small-multi as owner occupied, then sell our current duplex and 1031 that with all of the proceeds into more small multi-family units?

or

2) Buy a non-owner occupied now, once I have a remote/local job there, purchase the small multi-owner-occupied with a 3.5% down FHA and then sell the duplex where I currently live and 1031 that into more units.

Or...what is another way of thinking/planning that comes to mind?  In all of this we do not want to keep our current duplex as the homeless industrial complex is aggressively trying to eliminate small property owners where we currently live and I want out before our local market is destroyed.