1st Deal Advice: House-Hack with FHA or Private lending?

[Devin Arrigo]

Hi everyone,

I am soon to be a college graduate and will be moving to the Pittsburgh market in early June. My goal by the end of 2018 is to buy a duplex using and live in one unit while renting out the other. Obviously, being a recent college graduate, I won't have the cash available to buy outright, so I will need to finance using either using an FHA loan or private/hard money lending. Traditionally, when I hear about house hacking, I mostly hear about people using FHA loans to fund the deal. Does anyone have experience with house hacking using an FHA loan or any other type of lending? What are the benefits/negatives of each? How do each of the processes differ? What does each lender look at when lending? I'm just trying to gauge what my best plan of attack would be upon graduation to achieve my goal. Any advice is appreciated!

-Devin