Fiancé and I are trying to buy our first house

[Ethan Fowler]

Hello,

I am in the process of house hunting with my fiancé. Originally, I really wanted to purchase a multi family so we could live in one unit and rent the others out. I have come to realize that she really would prefer a single family home and keeps pushing the "cute" homes in our area. The only issue is they are quite expensive and produce no income while we live there. I don't think we would have a huge problem just buying a rental property after we purchase a single family home but, it feels backwards to me. I feel like it is better to purchase income producing property to help us afford a single family home in a couple of years. How have people in this community approached this dilemma and what was your solution/outcome?

I also considered that we could buy a single family home which needs some work so we could at least build some forced equity through renovation which seems like it might check both boxes for us but, we don't necessarily want to live in a construction zone. 

Thanks!

Ethan