I am in the last few weeks of escrow on my second sale and have a significant amount of equity since I purchased during the recession in the North bay of California’s Bay Area.The challenge for me now is to find a good deal to roll this (250k) into that cash flows and will appreciate.

I second what @Aaron Klatt said.

If you need help know what our buying criteria is please come to one or both of our events below.2- Come to our  weekly coffe with investors event 3- Come to our  Second Tuesday monthly investor meetup 

They seemed to have a good set of systems in place.Couture came in second on my list.Edited to add - I'm still very much a noob investor, being in the process of acquiring my first property as we speak.

I can second this. 

.- Secondly, I'd like to start buying Multi- family homes back home in Maine, preferably southern region (Brunswick, Bath, Portland).

They paid over 100K and then find out they bought the second. 1st hasn't been paid for over five years.

The first I would suggest is Brandon Turner's Book on Rental Property Investing and second, I would read his Book on Investing with No or Little Money Down - this will cater directly to your need but first you want the foundation of his 1st book and a little more knowledge (experience) in the REI community.

I am currently renting out a home that i bought with a VA loan, i am about to buy a second home and use the rest of my VA entitlement with.

I see a lot of discussion on flipping splits and have my head around that but when I'm looking at buy and hold rental properties the splits aren't as cut and dry.My second question is what kinds of numbers do you typically look for on deals that you are going to bring an equity partner in on?