How to finance my duplex?

[Brendan Chetuck]

Hi all,

So I have been talking to a few people on different ways to get started in RE (thanks guys). I figure house hacking with a duplex is a great start. I’d like to start next year but my concern is money.

I have a full-time job making decent pay for a first job, but I just got the job and a year of saving, on top of bills/rent/etc.. is hard. I have talked to some local investors (by the way I’m in the Albany, NY are) and some said I could get a conventional loan with a 10% down payment, or even as low as 5%. The way I look at it, a year of saving might be a little tough to gather enough cash to put down a 10% down payment and pay for all of the extra costs and fees.

I am struggling to decide wether I should try and save enough money to barely have enough to go with the conventional loan or just get an FHA loan for 3.5% and have some extra cash reserves (the one reasons FHA doesn't seem appealing to me is because of the mortgage insurance fee for the life of the mortgage).

I’d love to hear all of your thoughts!!