San Antonio Newbie looking to get started

[Joseph Lunstrum]

Here's my intro everyone. I am a 35 yr old public school music teacher.  I've been teaching for 10 years and had what I would consider to be extremely limited exposure and experience to real estate investing. 

My wife and I have lived in our new build starter home for 10 years. Recently, her father passed and set events in motion. We now live with her mother in her 4/3 SFH and are renting our starter home out.

This move, is what got me interested in real estate. We gradually moved in this past spring, a few boxes here and there, cleaned out a few things from her mom's house, sold some things here and there, cleaned up our house as we went, then did the big move right after school let out-beds, furniture, bookcases, etc. For about 3 weeks, I went over in the morning and either moved trash to a dumpster, or transported items to our new home. During these 3 weeks, I would also schedule work to be done that I couldn't do myself. We had someone come and make the house move in ready, we had a contractor come and patch some minor things, had the carpets shampooed, replaced a dishwasher. I tidied up the yard, trimmed the trees, power washed the driveway, etc. We found renters pretty quickly and we vetted them ourselves, asked for references and the like and to date are very satisfied with them. All of this was completed by the end of June and from then on I've toyed around with the idea of doing this a few more times, maybe more.

I've been researching online, looking for free information. The last thing I want to do is pay someone to give me information that I can ask or lookup on my own. Problem is, I am starting to get lots of free info but I don't feel I'm any closer to developing a plan on how to purchase another buy and hold rental property with little or no money down. We do have 401k's but that's not something we're willing to touch at this time.

I've read several places on BP about BRRRR and was thinking I might be able to use this strategy on our first rental (our starter home). We've Bought it (10 yrs ago using FHA loan), Rehab-ed it (when we moved out, many things were like new so not many things needed to be done), are Renting it, and I was wondering if Refinancing it would be a good first step to take towards Repeating. I believe if we refinance we can get a better, lower rate and lower payment which would free up some of the rental price for cash flow. How does this help us Repeat? I think I'm missing something with equity. We do have some equity, around 20000 I believe, but wouldn't this be a HELOC? All of this is confusing to me. I would definitely appreciate some guidance. Thanks!