FHA restrictions on house hacks

[Brad Sicoli]

I have a few 2-4 plexes that I like in my area. I'd like to do 3.5% fha. There is a 4 plex I wanted to make an offer on but my mortgage broker told me I can't do fha on it because the leases are locked up through Jan 2018 and there is no vacancy. It can't be my primary residence. When looking at listings it seems very uncommon for agents to list whether or not a property has vacancy because that would be a negative for most investors but it's actually a positive for first time home buyers. It seems like the only way to find out is to call the agent for each listing that might work; a tedious task. Is there a quicker or easier way to search for vacant properties that I could do as fha?