I would look at buying 5 properties using loans that have some sort of value add aspect in a market that I believe will appreciate at the minimum of the historic national average.This may be a rather boring and unflashy answer but I believe it would be the best money spent in my current knowledge and expertise.  

Thanks for your help.The advantages of house hacking/ buying a primary first over an investment property are that your down payment can be much lower (3-5% instead of 20-30%), and your interest rate will be much better with an owner-occ loan also (usually at least 1% less than investment loan).

I wouldn’t want to hold the loan for too long, so ideally it would be a 5 year term, presumably ballon payment at the end.

A Illegal simply starts a business entity , gets an EIN and insurances .

Your realtor will be able to give you a much more detailed market specific answer but with house hacking and a VA loan it should be possible to get 0 out of pocket.

This year I may see if if I can get a construction loan to build 20-30 apartments, then refinance with an asset based lender. what markets?

Still, you may not have to submit your tax returns. more info would be needed to know for sure, reach out to a seasoned loan officer for pre-approval and see if your situation would allow for this. 

Woohoo! My offer got accepted for an investment property in Pennsylvania. Next up is a huge financial hit: closing costs. I just signed a bunch of disclosures from my lender and after reading them it has me thinking, ...

Someone else just told me a similar thing, to make sure that loans can be secured for the property. 

With the proceeds we later purchased two properties the same month, one with FHA loan 5% down and received a closing credit of $8k plus a $2k check made out to us after closing.