I came back from my first FHA quote, time for a few questions?

[Brendon K.]

So I went in to a federal credit union yesterday and I was surprised at what she was saying.

I work a 9 to 5 while saving a few grand a month and am trying to get a FHA loan. The idea is to get a 3 or 4 plex so my rent is effectively $0 or close to it. The loan officer told me that their bank didn't do anything more than duplexes and that she didn't know if or how FHA considered incomes from other units within the same purchase, ie the other half of the duplex. She also calculated my numbers and instead of the 5-8k down payment I've heard of other people getting, she quoted me 22k. This is doable but not immediately expected. I noted that she was calculating out all the closing fees (every single one) and adding them in bulk to the down payment. The bank was quoting 3.5%.

Have you guys heard of FHA not handling 3 and 4 plexes, or is that just some screwed up bank policy where this specific bank doesn't want to take the risk of 3 or 4 plexes? I'm looking at trying to get a place that's up to 400k (namely due to a BP podcast where a guy in boston said he was making median income and was approved for that much), what would you expect a down payment to be for this much? Do you know if FHA considers other units in the same property when deciding how much you can afford (assuming I'm living in one of the units)?