I work a lot with @John Warren who is part of 2nd City and the whole team is very knowledgeable and investor friendly...that is their primary focus.

Appreciation would be nice but cash flow is the primary goal.

If you buy it as a primary residence, they will make you sign a statement that you intend to occupy the property as your primary residence.

@Jason Ma I'm not sure this answers your question but I would recommend looking at the growth of the university.I invest almost exclusively in student rentals in Columbia, SC and the University of South Carolina is the primary driver of activity in the downtown market.

However I do plan on living in the property temporarily so if I use traditional financing I can get into the property for as little as 3% down ($2400 compared to $40,000) with the current interest rates at around 4.75% for 30 years.

The more information is that the 7 year ARM can get rates as low as traditional financing (almost) and won't require reserve funds for other loans.

However, even though I have $50k to invest right now, I would prefer to go the traditional lending route for the first few which would require another FT job. 

My question is by doing this and making my primary residence one of the units am I required to pay 20% or 5% down?

My question is by doing this and making my primary residence one of the units am I required to pay 20% or 5% down?

A few quick data points for you:1) In order to do a VA IRRRL (which is still a VA loan), you must have a minimum of 210 days from the date of the first payment on the first VA loan to the new note date (i.e. closing date of the IRRRL).2) A minimum of 6 months consecutive payments must be made on the original VA loan.I'd first look to see if you have any VA entitlement left following the 4-plex purchase... if not, perhaps consider a refinance to an FHA loan while it's still your primary residence (loan amount can be up to 97.75% of the value of the property if it's a rate/term refinance) in order to reuse your VA entitlement for another purchase down the road.