We have been trying to use the rental calculator on Bigger Pockets to understand if our current property would positively cash flow once we turn it into a rental.The calculators don't seem to be set up for someone who wants to start out in the real estate investing world by cash out refinancing their current house, turning it into a rental, then using the cashed out equity as a down payment on a new primary residence.That being said the more we played with the calculators it seemed like we would get less then $100 of positive cash flow when we factor in Capex, Property Management, Vacancy, Repairs, etc... 

Building up rentals and getting cash out through refinancing seems super attractive.

Typical exit strategies include selling the property or refinancing to another lower cost loan. 

You could even utilize the equity in the property by refinancing or getting a HELOC to buy more investment properties if it is something you want to scale up. 

Your friend's advice about you have a 6 months waiting period sounds right because I refinanced an OO loan, a month later bought a foreclosure and wanted to move there.

Problem is house isn’t selling.. now considering converting to vacation rental (handing over to manager) and refinancing and using the proceeds as down payment for an apartment building.

I manage a mixed-use building; 299 apartments and 14 retail spaces. The owners purchased the property in 2011, so it is fairly new. They had 3 years of interest only followed by 10 years of principal/interest payments...

I've been looking at refinancing my primary mortgage from a VA 3.75% 30 year to a VA 3.25% 30 year loan which will save me about $247/month but to do so it involves about $5678 in closing costs to do so.

If you have a significant amount I would consider cash out refinancing those to be able to buy more.

I had refinanced 3 years ago and gotten a great rate at 3.65% for 30 yr fixed term.