Need creative financing advice!

[Liam Pinson]

What I need: Mortgage financing options for low credit and around 5% down.

My situation:

I bought a house last year, just recently rented it out, and am now in a short term rental myself. I had a student loan that came out of deferment, and I didn't realize it - fortunately Covid put it into deferment but only after 4 months of rolling 150+ day late payments. Regardless, my credit tanked from a 720 down to about 560. I have paid off that student loan (it was small), and I called the loan company before doing so to see if I could work out a way for them to remove it to no avail. I called and talked to three different people and worded it 3 different ways to see if I could get it removed, but student loan collections run a tight ship and do not budge. TL;DR I have this smudge on my credit report for the next 7 years and need to find an alternative financing option for me to buy a primary residence.

My issue is that my current house is financed FHA, and an individual can only have 1 FHA loan at a time in a local area. I need a conventional loan to get a mortgage, and I can't find anyone that will do a low credit score conventional loan with Covid tightening everything up. My lender says I should be ok in about 6 - 8 months to go ahead and buy - I paid all my debt (except the mortgage on my original house) and got added as an authorized user to one of my granddad's credit cards with long term on time payments. I'm now at ~ 590 CS.

Does anyone know of a creative way around this OR of an alternative financing source/ clever seller financing?

I can find deals and put in the hours, my income can sustain me - I'm single, low maintenance, the rental I live in now costs way less than the mortgage I was paying, and I'm a realtor. 

I'm set up for success except for the credit score - what are my options?