Advice on Financing for First Investment Property

[Robert Harlacher]

Hi BP Community,

I'm looking to purchase my first investment property and trying to figure out what the best financing route would be.

My plan is to buy and hold so I would want to get into a multi-family property for low out of pocket funds now and house hack for a year or two, do a cash out refi, and use that for a down payment on another property and repeat the process. After searching the forum for a few days I started to get some ideas but not sure what the best route would be.  Some of the options I see are Freddie Mac's Home Possible loan, Fannie Mae's Home Ready loan, or go through a local lender for a Portfolio loan.  

I'm not sure what the advantages/disadvantages are between them though.  If anyone could provide some feedback or any experiences you had with any of them I would greatly appreciate.  Is one better than the other as a first mortgage to start with?