house hacking/FHA loan

[Dana Peters]

I have a 'newbie' question....

I currently do not have a 'primary' residence, as 'my' house that I built and raised my children in 15yrs ago I converted to a duplex about 4 years ago and have been living in the building I rent to run my business as that is where I spend most of my time and it just made sense at the time to let my house pay for itself.

I have recently decided to go into real estate investing and have found a wonderful triplex that I know will be an excellent cash flow investment (yes Ive run the numbers every which way and it all makes sense, have even had other investors run the numbers to make sure I didn't miss anything) .... so the deal I believe, is really strong.

My problem,... since I have converted the house I own into a NON owner occupied duplex, I can not get a HELOC to fund downpayment on triplex. I have looked into credit card lines of credit and 20,000 credit card debt just really scares me.

Question..... Since I do not have a 'primary' residence, could I get an FHA loan to purchase the triplex with a smaller downpayment and consider it owner occupied even if I would not be there frequently but just rented out 2 units for 6 months? Then would I have to refinance to get out of the owner occupied FHA loan?

Hoping this makes sense and I can get some input.... also any other ideas in funding down payment.

Thank you! Dana Peters (newbie)