5% down single family vs 20% down multi family?

[Yixue Zhao]

Hello everyone! Newbie here, trying to buy my very first property as owner-occupied and I'm very excited! I have a few questions that I want to get some advice from the pros in our lovely community ^^

Background:

I'm renting currently due to a temporary job. I've noticed the rental market is very strong in my area and wanted to buy an owner-occupied property to live in for a year, and rent it out later when I move out of state. I can either do a single-family, or house hack a multi-family (although we have very few options available for multi-family unfortunately). I have locked in an interest rate at 3.625%, which seems very competitive so I wanted to go with this specific lender. However, for this lender, I'll have to put 15% down for duplex, and 20% down for triplex or fourplex. For single-family, I can just put 5% down. I don't have 15% or 20% down payment as cash, but I'm able to raise money from family and friends who can lend me the money immediately when I need it. (I'm transitioning to a job with higher pay and paying off the money I borrowed from family/friends wouldn't be an issue)

Questions:

1. Is it always better to put the lowest down payment possible? I wonder if I should just narrow it down to single family (only 5% down required) and we have way more options in single family than multi-family. With little down payment, I will also have the cash needed for renovation and potentially converting a single-family to a duplex. But with multi-family, I can house hack immediately.

2. If I do single family and want to convert it to duplex, what are the factors I should consider to see if it's worth converting when buying? I read some articles online but they don't dive very deep. Like I need to make sure the zoning allows etc. Of course, I'll make sure it's legal to convert, but I'm more interested in the economical side of things, e.g., how to do the math to figure out if it's a good idea to convert or not? And how do I know if the layout/architecture would make sense for converting?

3. Any advice on finding a good closing attorney and insurance company? Or the difference would be little so it doesn't matter that much? (I hear people talking about finding good property managers a lot more, so maybe attorney and insurance aren't that important?)

4. Starting from home inspection, I think I should keep track of all my expenses/incomes for the property. Do you recommend QuickBooks for beginners? I'll only have 1 property so I'm not sure if I need to use a paid software or CPA. But I also don't know what's ahead of me so it can get tricky if I just go with Excel sheets... Any suggestions for bookkeeping on a small scale?

Thank you so much in advance!