TonyHi Tony, The majority of the down payment came from our HELOC from our primary house plus we saved all of the cash flow from #1 with our little savings and the remainder came from another loc.

If you've got the money for the down payment, then the difference in rates for investor vs. primary resident is a small cost of the overall investment, assuming you're not able to find something in your area. 

My primary target is construction that I can sell at an affordable rate in the future or something that I can rent out.  

You can insure entity owned (LLC / INC) properties on their personal lines so long as you are the managing member, it would need to be insured with the individual as the primary and the entity as an additional insured.

For my wife and I, we don't have the income to qualify for this kind of mortgage (we have a mortgage on our primary residence now), and knowing how much we'd need to come up with for the initial investment and knowing it would take some time to get the occupancy up to where we want it, it seems risky to use hard money or some funding with a higher interest rate.I would like to make this happen at some point though because there seems to be high upside and this market doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon - at least not in this area.

I would say it is great to get the VA loan to buy your primary residence.

Was stationed in SoCal, Okinawa, and deployed to the Philippines.An odd combo of a gym rat and a bit of a nerd.Compete in amateur strongman competitions.As far as my goals go this is copied from my profile.Task 1: Debt freeCurrently, I'm on the cusp of accomplishing my first task on this road and for me that is 100% debt free.Task 2: 6 month emergency fundMy primary occupation ebbs and flows so an emergency fund is going to be key for my financial safety and health.Task 3: Save up roughly 30kUtilizing the VA for the purchase of my first property means I won’t need a down payment but having money to invest and fix up that first property will go a long way to speeding up my success.Task 4: Buy and renovate my first multifamily property (BRRRR)My first property is up and running and providing positive cash flow.Task 5: Expand to 3 properties within 5 years still utilizing BRRRRGet those properties up and running smoothly and make them highly desirable.

If you are purchasing a primary residence, you can use gift money from someone else, but they will not allow gift money for a down payment on an investment property (not sure how it works with owner occupied though).  

It'd be a different analysis if I already owned my primary residence.Obviously if the market crashed this year, it would be better to wait.  

There is also the issue of primary legislation and secondary legislation.Primary legislation refers to the Law, Act or Ordinance passed by the legislative of a particular jurisdiction.