Need help/advice on how to purchase a home for STR use...

[Tom P.]

I'm trying to purchase a home that will likely require a lot of rehabbing. Ultimately, it will be a vacation home for me and my family when we visit but we'd also like to rent it out as a short term rental when we're not in the area. Therefore, what would be the best type of loan product we're looking for to do this properly? 

We have great credit (high 700's) and have great DTI ratio that can allow us to get a conventional 2nd home loan at 7%, which I think is good comparative to today's rates for 2nd homes/investment properties. However, my understanding is that conventional loans don't like to lend on properties that require rehabs. I was thinking DSCRs, but it has higher interest rates and I think they don't do homes that require rehabs. Plus, you can't live in the home either, right? Is a standard hard money loan for rehabbing it and then re-financing it the only option or am I missing something a lot easier?

Any advice on how you would do it?