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Updated over 2 years ago,
House Hacking right after College Graduation
I'm set to graduate college in Civil Engineering in about a year and half from now. Currently I'm working as an intern for my state's Department of Transportation, and I plan on getting hired on full time upon graduation, which will be almost a guarantee. I also have been self educating myself on REI for long enough now that I'd feel relatively confident about looking for a property right now if I had the means (still in school, and don't have the income yet). For anyone who is familiar, I've followed Michael Zuber's (One Rental at a Time) advice about putting in the work and knowing your market, so I've kept up with my "buy box" spreadsheet tracking all the properties that go on in my market that I would potentially be interested in. I've decided that I'd like to house hack to get my foot in the door of REI, but I'm curious if there any obstacles that I might have to face to get the lending on a small multifamily (duplex, triplex, etc.). I'll have enough in savings to put 20% down, but I do have access to a VA Loan that I would use for this house hack to get that low or no money down and be able to take the 20% that I would have put down and use as reserves (I'm sure the lender would like to see that), my credit score is around 780 so that wouldn't be the problem, but where I see the issue coming from is work history or X amount of years of income. I'm very lucky to have parents who don't mind me staying with them while I finish college, and wouldn't mind me staying for a little while afterwards too until I get everything settled, but I'd like to go out on my own again as soon as I can (did 4 years military after HS, moved back in with them to finish college after)
I know there really is no way to know my options for sure until it gets closer and I'm actively lender shopping, but just curious if anyone on here has any experience or knowledge on this situation.
Also any extra advice would be greatly appreciated, always looking to gain some knowledge.
Thanks in advance.