VA loan 4-plex purchase/househack HELP

[John T.]

VA loan qualified. 3 years landlording (tax return) experience. Looking at a 4-plex to owner-occupy. Our DTI is too high, bank is saying the subject property is roughly 100K over our borrowing power. We have about 130K liquid from a property we sold last year. The bank won't consider the rent from 3 of the 4 units nor rent from our SFR primary residence (which we plan to rent when we move out) to offset our income as it is only considered "projected." Although we would be living for free in the 4-plex if this deal went through (3 units pay 4plex PITI and primary house rent pays its own PITI), we can't seem to make it work in the banks eyes.

We have no qualms using majority or all of our cash in the deal, but it would defeat the purpose of leveraging the VA loan. We would also need to have 6 months reserves.

Any thoughts on how to get from point A (abovementioned) to point B (living in 1 unit at the 4plex with our house rented)?

Thanks for any insight.