Should we owner occupy a two-family estate?

[Sara Furlong]

We want to be free of our crippling $80K student loan debt. Our idea is to sell our current house (only about $16K equity in it) and buy a 2-family and live in half and rent the other (we are a family of four - 2 little kids).

We found a house that is listed for only $74,900. It's an estate of a 100-year-old lady that died last month. There is a 3BR apt down and a 1BR up. We actually like it, which surprised me for that price. The only issue with it we can find so far is the stairs to the upstairs apartment are very steep and slanted. (It is a covered outdoor staircase.)

We want to live in the downstairs apartment and rent the upper one. This would make our monthly payment with everything about $200. Our mortgage now is $1070, so that's an improvement. We can take the savings and throw it at our student loans.

Then in about 2 years, once we've paid off half the student loans and saved up some down payment money, we will have just one loan left and can move to a new place . We would want to keep this little 2-family and use the profits from the rent to pay off the remaining loans.

Is this a viable plan? What am I missing? I feel like there could be some potential in doing things this way. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR ANY INSIGHT YOU CAN PROVIDE.