Investing with First-Time Homebuyer Program money

[Anthony Portugal]

Hello,

I'm a newbie to investing, but have been doing much reading in this forum and would like to get started in REI.

I've recently applied for the First Time homebuyer down payment assistance program with a local city here and had a few questions on how those programs are ran, if anyone is familiar with them.

If everything goes through, i will be eligible to receive $25-30K in down payment assistance (as a forgivable second mortgage) to buy a property within that city. The catches are that the property must be my "primary residence" for at least 10 years in order to make it "forgivable" (meaning I don't have to pay the money back provided by the program). If I sell, refinance, or rent the property within the 10 years, then I will have to pay back the city.

My plan is to use the money towards purchasing a property near a local college and renting out to students. But, obviously this would cause conflict with the homebuyer program in that it would require me to pay back the money, which is what i want to avoid doing.

So, my question, to those that may be familiar with these programs, is how will the city know whether or not i am still residing in the property? do they perform random checks or have a systematic means in finding out?

Also, what is the process of renting out a property? would i have to report it to the city or can i just rent my property "under the table" so to speak that way I can fly under the radar??

Or perhaps someone can come up with another method in using these funds creatively in REI...??

Any suggestions and advice would be appreciated?
Thank you,
-Anthony