Buy the house I'm renting as my first property?

[Jenna Gibson]

My husband, 2 kids, and myself have lived in the same home for over 5 years paying $1500 rent. We also share the rent with two roommates who are friends from military service. Everyone has their own rooms/bathrooms, and we split all the bills equally between us. Recently the homeowner has decided to sell. She offered to sell the home to our roommate Mike for $45,000. When I Google our home it shows it was appraised between $134,000-$181,000. The home was built in 1922 and needs some work. Specifically it needs some old wooden windows replaced with energy efficient ones, an HVAC overhaul, and gutters added. The roof was recently replaced a few years ago after a bad storm. And the property manager has made repairs as we request them. The house is over 3000 square feet, and no one wants to move from the home. So if we owned the home we'd be the landlords for our roommates. From the estimates I've seen while doing research the payments we'd be making would be approximately $800/monthly for everything - which could be covered just by our roommates alone. And they would happily sign long term leases to remain here. The main concern is we have zero upfront money we can use to invest. The pandemic has cost us a lot. When my husband lost his job we used up our savings to stay afloat. His parents are not in a position to help either. All of my research has led me to either Hard Money Lending or Private Lending. HML seems to be a bad idea since the interest is so high and the loans are so short. Which leaves Private Lending, but I honestly have no idea where to begin? If anyone out there has any idea what I can do in this situation I would greatly appreciate any advice or links to resources where we might find some assistance. This seems like a solid investment in my opinion because the price is so low compared to its estimated value, and long term, reliable tennants are already included. Thank you so much for reading. I'm very happy I found this forum. Sincerely, -Jenna-