Financing question for first investment property

[Matt Wilson]

Hey BPers-

Financing question from a newbie here that I wanted to try and get a little extra insight on. My girlfriend and I are looking to buy our first investment property sometime in the spring of next year and are currently investigating our different financing options. With our recent budget projections we should have around 40k by that time. I did a little research over the past week or so and came up with what I think might be a good approach for us but wanted to bounce it off some more experienced and knowledgeable people.

Out of the options that I've read about, I think a cash out refinance might work best (depending on appraisal/equity). We currently have a 30yr FHA loan we took out two years ago on our current house. I was thinking we could cash out refinance now into a 30yr conventional primary and then in 6+ months, take out another FHA to get the second property. That way we could use whatever we get from the cash out to use as the primary funds for the second property and take advantage of the low down payment with the FHA. I figured if that won't work because we don't have enough equity built up (still have to pay PMI, not getting a significant sum of cash after paying closing costs, etc.), we could just go with a conventional and do something like 30k for 20% down payment and 10k for renovation/ unforeseen costs. If you think there is a better path to take, have any informational resources I should review, or anything else to share by all means please do. As I said, this is our first dance at this party and any tips to help us not fall flat on our face would be appreciated.