If you can use your VA loan to buy a property to live in, which will turn into a cash producing asset down the road, I definitely recommend doing so; take advantage of the zero down loan if you are able to.

@Kelvin Letron Brantley like @Chris Mason said, most HML will look at your credit simply to determine the risk of missing payments.By nature, hard money loans are asset based.

I guess I like the idea of buy and hold renting so that it is an asset that I will keep and continue to cash flow, but if the numbers make more sense to sell and acquire more properties then that is something to consider.

Here is my financial picture:40k in consumer debt75k mortgage60k in student loansMy assets:155k is the value of my homeMy current plan is to do the following:Sell the houseGiven I sell the house for 150k I estimate after closing costs, realtor fees, paying off my consumer debt and existing mortgage I would have 25k left for investing.

Do you know how to find, underwrite, and asset manage deals?

The stock market can fluctuate quite a lot, but rental assets tend to remain pretty steady.

The past several weeks I have received over 1,000 assets for sale.

Appraisers use different methods depending on the market, industry, asset class, etc.

Plus I have more control over the asset in RE than I do in stocks. 

Curious if anyone has come across this same chart, but updated to say 2018? It's a powerful explanation on why real estate is a superior investment in terms of both risk and return. I'm writing a blog about it, but ca...