Can you "house hack" a condo?

[Tony Alvine]

As I understand it, house hacking would traditionally mean living in one unit of a multi unit property for at least a year and that would allow you to rent out the remaining units and then the unit you would live in after you complete your year. This would get you better mortgage rates with potentially less money down. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm wondering if I can do the same thing with a 2/3 bedroom condo. Living in one bedroom for a year and renting the other rooms out to tenants and then renting out all three the following year. I'm not sure if that's allowed or if lenders would say no to that. To be clear, I'm not interested in what they "like", only what wouldn't constitute mortgage fraud and I wouldn't give any info to them that I don't have to.

The second part of that is, could I have the home be my "residence", for mortgage purposes, if I didn't physically live in it most of the time? Sounds stupid, I know. I wouldn't rent that room out to anyone for the first year, I would have the bills in my name and pay them, and I may stay there every now and then (I'd have a bed and some clothes there). Would it be any different than if I really did move in and then spent my days traveling? Only reason I ask is that it would be much more inconvenient for me to be there all the time as opposed to where I am now (where I live for a cash month to month, no bills in my name). And before someone asks why I would want to stay where I am and pay rent instead of move in there and live for free or cheaper... it would add 1.5 hours each way to my commute on public transport whereas I currently drive 15 mins with barely any traffic. Losing 60 hours a month isn't worth it.

What would be enough to call the place my "residence" on paper. Unit in my name, bills in my name, and me not claiming another place as my primary residence would be enough right?