By house hacking, you're immediately positioned as a landlord, which will adequately pressure you to learn how to structure your leases, screen applications, collect rental payments, resolve the nuances of managing tenants and addressing property issues, etc.

We refinanced and cashed out all our renovation budget plus $5,000 and actually kept monthly payment the same as rates had dropped.

Start working towards a 5% down payment so you can house hack a MFH.

Having a small unit that would pay half of your mortgage payment is worth way more than 20-50k. 

The wrong tenant can lead to non-payment, evictions, and property damage.

Otherwise, move debt down to a 7-10 year time frame + lower monthly payments.

Also we felt we were going to make more self managing than with the payments they were offering.

To me, having one mortgage payment for 2 - 4 houses (basically) always seemed interesting and like something that would give me more bang for my buck. 

Most lenders I work with would lend you 70%-75% of the value of the property, but only so much that your NOI/profit is 20%-25% of the monthly loan payment.

You can build your own team i.e. title co, insurance, pm, contractors, handyman,process server, lender etc.... or you can find an operator who can get you going in that market while simultaneously building out your team.Section 8 housing is a great way to ensure consistency with rent payments however not all tenant who have HCV pay 0%.