Question about Multifamily Financing

[Adam Sieloff]

Hey everyone, long time lurker, first time poster here.

I have started looking for my first multifamily house hack in Houston, Texas and after talking to a few lenders I keep running into an issue. 

Like a lot of people on this site I was drawn to multifamily house hacking because it allowed for the purchase of a multi family property with very favorable financing options (3-5% down) as long as you occupied one of the units as your primary residence.

After speaking with multiple lenders they are all telling me that this is only through the Freddie Mac Home Possible program which has an income cap that I, unfortunately, do not meet. The only conventional multi family loans that seem to be available to me require 15% down for a duplex and 20% down for a triplex.

On a $400,000 duplex I am looking at this increases the down payment from $12,000 to $60,000, an enormous difference for a 28 year old trying to buy his first property.

Am I missing something here? Is there another way to put 3-5% down on a multifamily property? With how prevalent this type of house hack is in the biggerpockets community, is there anyone else that has had this issue?

The income cap for the Home Possible program in the zipcode I am buying in is $63,480 which isn't all that much. Surely someone else has ran into this issue before? Is there a way around it?

Thanks so much for your help guys, this forum and this community have really changed my life soooo much for the better.