My stay at the current place is nearing its end and I'm unsure if it's smarter to buy another primary residence and house hack or just buy another rental with the cash I have saved up and find something else to rent. 

I'm recently US.Army retired and a chef. 

This is the place for long-term goals & Arlington is ripe for a nice retirement nest egg to cash out on later in life.

Hi everybody.Maybe I'm a dummy but could you explain the Financing thing to me.Let's say I save $10k.

Our goal is to build wealth for retirement through a buy and hold approach. 

I would keep the property and keep my prop 13 protected property tax saving and leverage its equity for the necessary improvements as a minimum. 

You'd be saving the $1300 a month in CC debt, and think about the higher interest rate you'd be paying on the a new mortgage because of your lower credit score. 

The conversation about leverage shouldn't be brushed over.Positively leveraging an asset is much different than negatively leveraging that asset.Also, you need to factor in how much leverage you have with respect to how big your reserves are.Being 52 means you're half way home, I doesn't mean you're close to retirement.... or that you need to play it safe.

Also in terms of insurance claims do people have to wait for the claim(s) to be paid o before you purchase/acquire the property (land/lot)I am talking about a strategy I want to use in CA and I want to save money and have a lot of time I can exchange to get/acquire land potentially 

THe whole point is not to have to live in it for 2 years to save on the taxes.