If you can live for free and only pay utilities AND buy an investment property, that would be ideal in terms of savings and cash flow.If you can't stay and your parents want to make some money on that property, then yes, house hacking would be your best option especially since you don't want the best place in the multi.

I do not have my numbers as well organized as @Greg Scott but my estimate is upper 20% annual return on average.The 3 i am currently invested in, one seems likely to produce an outstanding return (High risk, high reward), one is conservative and is performing to projections, and one i have significant concerns about but has not had a capital call.  

Separately metered with tenants paying all utilities.

Craigslist wasn't pretty, but it was easy to use, and it worked (I found lots of great tenants via Craigslist) ...unfortunately, over the years, Craigslist produced fewer and fewer tenants, and more and more spam.  :( These days, nearly all my new tenants come from Facebook Marketplace.  

If not, you will have to utilize hard money which will drastically increase holding costs.

I'm going to utilize this intel.

Even though rental properties can be somewhat passive, there are still things to keep an eye on, like collecting rent, making sure utilities get paid, ensuring property management is doing their thing, etc.

If utilities are present, the property is worth what other bare land properties in the area are worth.

I would also recommend looking at cities close to Greenville, like Anderson, Easley, & Simpsonville as well since Greenville can be competitive unless you are looking at off-market deals.Also the non-occupancy tax would be based on the tax assessed value of the property and not the income it produces.

Which profits can than be utilized to carry forward into the then "good" MFH acquisition timing of things.