Need guidance on best option for first loan

[Michael T Carrigan]

Just recently started checking out BP with advice from a friend who's fairly new to the REI game, super excited.
My situation is that I have my house completely paid off and I’m wondering if I should take a loan out on my existing house to finance my first property or leave it alone and try to get try to get traditional financing based on my current income. 
With that said, I'm a small business owner with not a huge amount of NOI because I'm getting killed on biz insurance, health insurance and franchise fees.
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. 
looking forward to get started on long term financial independence. 
cheers