The home is Ideal for the expanded family w/ three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a massive family room, and two fireplaces.

The home is Ideal for the expanded family w/ three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a massive family room, and two fireplaces.

Condos feature rare two-car garage parking and beautiful finishes ideal for sophisticated living.

Condos feature rare two-car garage parking and beautiful finishes ideal for sophisticated living.

Yes, use your VA loan and ideally use it on a multifamily property (1-4 units). 

I am sure adding more to your "to do" list is not an ideal situation.  

Now my current plan is to purchase more rental property, however I would ideally like to buy a property to live in within the next 5 years... my dilemma is how I should proceed to limit the debt I tie to my own name, assuming this would make it harder to finance future deals and ultimately my ideal living property.

It's kind of like insurance.As far as the ideal time to buy a house, I'd assume we continue to see home prices come down a few % points over the next several months, but as interest rates continue to rise I'd bet you see your mortgage payment be about the same.

The first one (ideally around $300k) is to cover pre-construction soft costs, have some liquidity and keep the family's living expenses and the second one would be used to fund the project itself.We would most likely need a loan with deferred payments or use the money from the first loan to pay interest only on both loans.So our goal right now is to figure out whether this is even possible with given circumstances.Are there any other options for something like this?

@Christina MerloLocal REIA events are a good starting point.I've met an individual private lender or two at those - they know that individuals like yourself are likely to attend, so they're also often in attendance.If you're working with an individual private lender, it would likely behoove you to meet them in person and ideally through a referral from another local investor.