What money should I use to buy our next primary residence?

[Jake Ferguson]

Hey everybody!

So I'm in the military, and I'll be moving next summer to Florida. Conveniently, I'm down here for training, and looking for a house while I'm here. I think I've found one, but I'm having trouble deciding how I should buy it. 

I currently own a home in Virginia with a VA loan, with about $30K in equity. I also have enough funds to put 10 or 20% down on the house if needed.

I plan on renting out the house in Virginia when I move to Florida, so I was thinking about taking out a HELOC on that house, and using that to buy the house in FL with a second home loan, with only 10% down. When we're closer to moving down, I was planning on doing a cash out refi on the second home into a VA loan and using that money to pay back the HELOC and hopefully get a couple bucks extra from it.

Any comments or tips here would be great to hear! Please let me know what you think!

[Jared Viernes]

Are you unable to refi out of the home with a conventional loan to get back all of your VA benefits? I don't know if you have been paying attention to the DC news, but there is a very good chance that John Taylor will be appointed as the next chairman of the FED. He is a well know hawk on interest rates, so there may be a chance interest rates rise as soon as December. If you are able to lock in interest rates now through a refi, now is the time to do it.