Need help financing my first small multifamily

[Chaz Heasley]

I’m looking for some advice on financing a small multifamily property to live in one unit and rent out the others.  

My situation: I’m a union carpenter so conventional banks say that since I’m in a union they like to wait until I’m in the union for at least 2 years so that they can determine my income.  I have been in the union for a little over a year and I have a pretty consistent work history before that. 

I own a house that I inherited and my sister pays $200 so I guess you could say I’m house hacking it currently.  I have done all the work myself instead of using a rehab loan.    Due to the condition, the bank won’t accept it as move in ready.  I have just used personal lines of credit to pay for materials.  I have every room but one bedroom and small half bath fixed.  Hopefully the bank’s appraiser will accept it so that I can refinance and use the equity, but I don't know how picky they will be.

With house hacking I have been able to pay off most of my debt and start saving more.  I have about $4k saved up plus about $5k worth of stocks that I can sell.  

My plan was to finish fixing it up so that I can use the equity.  However, that will probably take a couple months if I'm working a lot so I might hire some help.  I want to get my own place ASAP so I'd like to give myself more options if it takes too long to get the bank to pull the equity.

My question is: What are my options to finance a owner occupied duplex purchase so that I can move in ASAP? If I can't get a conventional loan are there other lenders I can connect with that might be able to help? Most of the places I am looking to invest are pretty cheap markets. I was hoping to find something under $100k and with my skills I can take on a BRRR if need be.