Moving to St. Louis FHA advice?

[Joshua Whitehorn]

Hello,

My name is J.W. Whitehorn and I am looking to acquire my first investment property. My wife and I plan to move to St. Louis this year and want to buy a duplex to live in one side and rent out the other. From my research it looks like a FHA loan might be the best way to finance it but I'm not sure. My wife just graduated Iowa Law School and will start her job in St. Louis at the end of October and I will be a full time seminary student at that point. Our concern is since we do not currently have jobs that it may be difficult to acquire an FHA loan. We would like to start the process this month of finding the potential duplex and eventually move in beforehand October. If anyone can provide any advice based on our situation it would be greatly appreciated. We also will have the savings it would take for a down payment on the FHA loan. Thank you

[Kenton Coffman]

Josh,

I'm not a loan officer.  However, I know that they will be looking at current funds available (down payment), employment, credit history, etc... 

Truly the only way to find out is to contact a loan officer.  You should be able to verbally give them information and they can give you an idea of what loan programs you qualify for and if you would be best to consider the co-signer option.  The co-signer option might be needed in order to boost all of those factors that I mentioned above.

If you need a recommendation for a loan officer, let me know.  I know several that I think do an awesome job and are great communicators