Conventional Financing Help

[Chukwudi Motanya]

Hey BP Community, hope everyone is staying warm during these cold winter days. I on the path of looking for my 1st investment properties and I am planning on going with conventional financing for the 1st property.

I have some duplexes that I am interested in looking in, and they seem like decent deals and they're running for around $100,000. I have $20,000 to work with, and with 20% down that would be very tight/ not possible but I was planning on getting my parents to be equity partners with me for the deal so that I could afford it and still realize the CoC returns that the property could gain.

After talking with one mortgage broker however, I was told that I could not accept gifts from outside parties to help fund this transcation and that the money would have to come entirely from me.

My question is; is this a common practice? Can I not pull together money from the Bank of Mom and Dad to get this loan?

Also this will be my first property I've ever owned. I will be investing out of state. Is 20% down the norm for what I have to put down or are there other ways I could go about this since this is my first property.

I also have really good credit if that helps. (Mid 700's)

Thanks everyone!