I am a first-time homebuyer. My wife and I are working towards owning our own rental properties and have been wanting to house hack. Our financial situation has been scarce as over the past two years I was working to support my wife through college, living paycheck to paycheck. She graduated 3 months ago and is established at a wonderful fulltime job. I am about to take my real estate exams to get my license and become a real estate agent (just waiting on the application to be accepted). I've been unemployed for 3 months but am picking up a low paying parttime job that will be flexible with my real estate schedule, so my wife and I can start beefing up our savings again.

We're currently renting from family (which I know is a BIG NO NO) and they're now pushing to evict us within the next 6-8 months if not sooner so they can remodel the house to better suit them and their life. We signed no contracts or anything with my family, so there's really no legal way around this.

With that, we have $560 in savings and can have around $11,000 saved by February 2024(if not more). We're looking at an FHA loan with DP assistance. Considering my wife and I want to house hack, what suggestions do you all have? We're looking at houses within the $270,000-$330,000 because we can't have a heavy monthly mortgage payment at this time. So far, I've spoken with 3 lenders all putting us around $2,900 - $3,100 monthly mortgage, but that was with a $385,000 house price which I now realize is VERY unlikely. We were thinking more like $2,500 MAX is what we can afford, but interest rates are high, putting us around 7-7.6%

Another thing I was thinking was getting a house in a great location and eventually moving and renting it out to pay the mortgage. Most things in our price range are modulars and I'm just not sure if that would be a good investment? Anyone have any insight on purchasing a modular? There was a triplex posted for $300,000 that was contingent within 3 hours of being posted, crazy. Ideally, we'd love a property that is a duplex/triplex, but everyone gobbles those up.

We could easily have a DP saved within a year that would help with the monthly mortgage payment, but unfortunately, the short timeline is our issue. We absolutely cannot have a family co-signer and we are unable to receive a DP gift, so those are also both out of the equation. Someone said we'd just have to go back to renting an apartment, and that for us is truly LAST resort as we're hoping to have a family within the next couple years.

Any and all feedback, tips, suggestions are very much welcome. I'm reading tons of books and talking to multiple lenders to find out the best route and knew coming here asking you all would be a huge help.

Asheville, North Carolina

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