Loan type for first purchase

[Chris Anderson]

Hey all--

Bought my first house 2 years ago.  I bought a fixer upper and extended myself to the limit thinking my family would grow into it.  We got a great deal on the house and I've put all the work in it myself fixing it up. Now realizing that the house is to big for us I would be able to sell it for a pretty good gain and free up a lot of cash.  

Been trying to figure out my next steps and use the money for investments.  My idea was to by a duplex/town home and rent one side out and live in the other bringing my living expenses down really low and using the rest of my money to start looking for buy & hold properties.

My question is, should I purse an FHA loan on the duplex/town home that I'm going to live in/rent to keep as much cash as possible for my next investment? Of course it's all about the numbers, some people have said to be careful about not having any equity in a deal. Just wanted to be able to able to leverage as much as I can and reserve cash to use in future investements.

Thoughts...

Chris