Owner-occupied house hack in Louisville, KY and Southern, In

[Matthew Richardson]

My wife and I are looking into purchasing our first home. We have recently been introduced to BiggerPockets. We are eager to try the principles taught in this community. It seems we can't find a property that fits the 70% ARV rule for flipping, 1% rental rule for buy and hold etc. When we do find these they get snatched up by cash investors.

As a result, we are revising our strategy to search for duplexes/quadplexes in Louisville, KY or Southern Indiana that we could house hack. Our realtor has told us a few times that as owner-occupants (not cash investors or putting 20% down) we just won't find the pricing metrics we are looking for.  

Does anyone have any ideas/tips for finding our first, and hopefully, profitable investment as an owner-occupant? We can do a lot of updates ourselves and have some savings for other repairs, but otherwise are trying a lot of little money down strategies.