Financing advice for my 2nd property

[Chirag Shah]

Hey All,

I recently purchased a duplex that I am house hacking in Austin, TX. So far, it's been a good decision in that I've been able to learn landlord basics, how to do a cosmetic rehab, and live extremely cheaply. When I move out, I'll be cash flowing approx $200/unit. I utilized conventional financing at 20% down to avoid PMI, so it ate a lot of my savings. FHA might have been better here, but I've lived and learned.

I wanted to pose the question of how I should move onto how I can finance my 2nd property as soon as I can. My preference is for residential multi-family at the moment. I'm having difficulty assessing if I have financial options, and which ones I should take seriously. 

My personal finances are as follows:

• $11K in savings
• The property was assessed at $280K in January per a bank appraisal. A tax appraisal assessed it as $315K recently. 
• $10K in IRA/401K
• $3K in Gold/Silver

These are the options I am considering:

1. Save until I can comfortably acquire another property in CTX or OOS. Looking at residential multifamily, I'd need roughly $50k for a decent investment at 25% down. I would wait for 1-1.5 yrs or longer.

2. Save until I find another duplex to house hack in Austin, TX. Austin is booming and prices are outrageous, but I could consider an FHA to get into residential multifamily at $350-400k at 5% down. I would wait for 6-9 mos. to acquire with this and consider duplexes to triplexes.

3. Apply for a HELOC at 4.75% as my property received a tax appraisal of roughly $35k higher than my market price. Assuming this is untapped equity, I could take it at 80% LTV, and get $28k for down payment. Coupled with 12-15k in savings I could acquire again within 3-4 mos.

Are these my main options, what am I missing? Is this a good perspective on my strategies? Are there financial strategies I'm not considering?

On a side note, I am a W-2 employee and have a 740 credit score. 

Thanks for your help, BP members. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.