Unique Situation: Owner Occupied / House Hacking

[David Tardy]

Hey y'all! I am in a unique predicament. First of all, I love my job and do not want to quit anytime soon. I work for a tech startup based in NYC that is creating a new point of interest database of the country. Basically, we make maps. I am the one who gets to travel the country, live in a new city every two weeks and walk down every street of each city making a map of the country. This is my dream job! However, I know it is not going to make me wealthy. I want to be in a great situation financially when I decide to settle down in a few years and Real Estate is how I plan to do that! So here's the problem. The REI strategy that I'm most interested in is big multi family. I am going to start with a 4 Plex in the DFW area that is a value add opportunity, that can be purchased for 200-250k. I don't have 40k cash to put towards the DP though. I want to use a FHA 203k loan to fund this project so I can get into it sooner than later. My question is, how could this work for me if I am living out of my suitcase on the road? Do I have to be physically in the unit for a period of time or can it just be "vacant" as my primary address? All advice is appreciated even if it is not directly related to my specific questions! Thanks (: (P.S. ideally I'd like to use "my" unit as a STR as I travel and put long term tenants in the other 3 units.)