Am I doing this right? I am sure there is a better way!

[Marshall Easlick]

I could use some advice and some more educated critical thinking that I can provide myself, if you please. I am approaching a dead end despite educating myself in real estate investing because I am ambitious and willing to accept risk but I know that my current investment strategy isn't fast enough for me and it's too costly.

I am in Wellington, Colorado (8,000 population with bare essential infrastructure), which is 15 minutes north of Fort Collins, Colorado (a city with 160,000+ population), which is an hour north of Denver, Colorado.

I am interested in buying and holding rental properties using a property management service because my work requires me to be out of state for weeks at a time and my availability is very low right now (If I could, I would be flipping houses because I love to be hands on with projects but I am making good money right now as an employee and I don't think I could make this much by flipping houses).

I have purchased two new construction houses so far and I am unsure of what my next investment should be. The rental market in Wellington, Colorado right now seems strong to me and I think it will only get better over the next twenty years (I think this will be the next Southern California). I say that it seems strong to me but when I quantify it, these houses are only renting for .6% of their purchase price. However, I am in it for the long haul and, at this rate, rents will increase tremendously over even the next 5 years. 

I bought my first one on Halloween 2014 with a 20% conventional loan and my second one a week ago with a VA loan. I was thinking of living in this house for a year (maybe more if needed), refinancing the VA into a conventional loan using equity and cash, and buying another house next year using the VA loan again. In order to do this, I am looking at an $8,000 VA loan fee and $2,500 in closing costs. With all miscellaneous costs associated with closing (and because I like to be conservative with my numbers), I am looking at spending roughly $12,000 in fees just to get a new construction rental property. I don't like the idea of fees and money going out the door like that when I could be using it toward a down payment and it would be equity. However, it might be better just to get as many rentals as possible right now and run a cash flow snowball to pay down one loan at a time. My two problems are: 1) this is too slow and, 2) giving money away sucks, that's why I bought a house in the first place. Any thoughts on a better strategy? I am sure that the answer is in education but, like I said, I have been educating myself for about 6 weeks in hopes that the dots would connect themselves once I read/listened enough but it just isn't clicking, so I am requesting some outside help. Anyone have a better idea?