I just got off a deployment in the military and now with the capital I have and the VA home loan available to me, I feel confident I am ready to make my first REI.

I deployed in April and decided to rent the property out until my return.

. - If your parents sell the house at this point they will have to pay long term capital gains tax, if they can then deploy this capital into another investment channel that will generate higher returns this may not be a bad thing.

Your statement is correct if the goal is cash flow *on this one property*, but there are other ways the cash could be deployed that could help the original poster make additional money.The most financially pure way to evaluate this decision would be to build a cashflow projection and calculate the internal rate of return on your different options, which would be a function of how fast you expect rents/expenses to grow, how long you'll hold the property, the amount you'll sell it for, etc. 

Do you have another deal lined up so you can re-deploy capital quickly?

I started listening to BP podcasts on my last deployment because one can only watch so many bootleg movies.

As a Senior Acquisitions Manager with a publicly traded REIT, I successfully deployed over 50 million dollars of investment capital delivering a balanced portfolio and achieved set yield targets. 

I'm looking to start by buying a du/tri/four plex as my first home, and then start investing that cash flow as quickly as possible to get into larger multi-family investing.If you're a military member, I'd love to learn more about property management during deployments and PCS'ing.

Hire a management company to handle it since you'll likely be traveling / deployed a lot and you'll need the PM once you PCS.

I'm nervous about it, I'm currently deployed in Afghanistan and I'm ready to come home. and invest my money.