Taking out a loan through Lightstream (Truist Bank) to fund next property purchase

[Kyle Blankenship]

Before I begin, I just want to say my fiance and I are very new to real estate investing and are learning as we go (for better and worse). My fiance and I currently own a multi-family (3 unit) property. We rent two units out and live in one of the residences. We purchased the property back in November of 2020. We did renovations to two of the units before renting them out. We spent around $30k. The I/R on the property at the time was a variable rate and in mid/late 2021, we refinanced and received a 30yr fixed rate at 5.875%. We then renovated the third and final unit and spent around $20k. We, unfortunately, hurried through the refinance process and instead of doing a cash out refinance to get our money out of the property, we did a standard refi and used a HELOC to cover the closing costs. The HELOC is for $32k and $29k of it was used on the closing. The HELOC has a variable rate and has now grown to 9%. Now we're wanting to purchase another property and are trying to do it with no or little money out of pocket (we don't want to tap brokerage or savings accounts). I was hoping we could do a cash out refi now and get a mortgage amount that would cover our HELOC balance as well as cover a good chunk of our next property's down payment. I've chatted with two banks and, unfortunately, are told we can't do this due to LTV %'s. We were told the rates right now would also be around 7%... One of the banks pointed me in the direction of a lender called Lightstream through Truist Bank. Apparently, I would be able to get up to a $100k loan at a fixed rate w/ no down payment, fees, etc. Now, I'm not sure what loan amount I would need as we are about to start searching for our next deal. But, if I were to ask for a $50k loan, depending on term, the rates range from 7.49 to 9.69%. My question is whether or not this is a sound play or not. I get that we have to do our math and ensure we're smart about it, but the amount could easily repay our HELOC and be used for a down payment. Any advice/direction is greatly appreciated. Ultimately, my fiance and I want to expand our real estate portfolio with single/multi-family properties. Ideally, in the Chicago area, but we are open to exploring out of market and even internationally (we've even been reading a fair amount about international properties for AirBnB). Thanks!