New to investing, is this idea sound for my first move?

[Brandon Durkee]

Good Afternoon All! 

I hope you are all having a wonderful Friday.  The weather is beautiful out here in Southern CA today! 

I have been learning everything I can about real estate investing over the last few months.  I am a few months away from making my first move.  I came up with an idea that I thought could give me 2 deals instead of 1 right off the bat. 

So, originally my plan was to house-hack. I have saved up $20,000 and should have about $25,000 or a little more in the next couple of months. I wanted to use that money for a down payment (FHA) on a duplex. I found an example home that seemed to work and ran a hypothetical deal:

$2,800 Monthly Cost (loan, PMI insurance, maintenance, taxes, etc.)
Each unit would do about $2,100-$2,300 in rent.  (my calculations use the conservative $2,100)

I want to live in one unit for 1 year and rent the other.  After collecting $2,100 in rent, this would allow me to live there for $700 a month. 

What I want to do is instead, find an private money investor who would lend me $20,000 for 36 months at 15% instead of using a personal loan, as I read you are not able to obtain a personal loan to use as a down payment for an FHA loan. I would use the 20K as my down payment.   (Obviously I would need to find somebody to accept these terms, not sure if it is even feasible!)

I would then be on the hook for roughly a $693 payment to the investor every month.  With the negative operating cost of $700, it would cost me $1,586 per month to live in the home. 

This is actually much better than the $2,300 I pay in rent every month as I live in Southern CA.  So for 1 year I would live there for $1,586.  Then after the 1 year, I would want to invest in another house-hack and move out.  This would mean I would have 2 units renting for $2,100 per month ($4,200 total). At this point I would be cash flowing $807 a month for the next 2 years and once the investor is paid off, it would cash flow $1,500. 

I want to use the other money I personally have saved up and use it as a down payment for a home for my parents.  I want them to simply pay the mortgage and expenses on it until they are done working, by that time I will allow them to live there for free.  They did not do well financially and this is a way I feel I can help them out, while also build equity in the home. 

I am not sure if this even sounds feasible, but those were some initial thoughts and wanted to see what some more of the seasoned investors think.  Bring me back to Earth if you have to! 

I sincerely appreciate the time and the thoughts! 

Brandon