Too bad you can't buy something owner-occupied, put 5% down with the best interest rate, live in it for 12 months (and fix it up), rent it out and repeat the cycle.Here's some other info you might find useful:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

And you probably need money for living expenses.

If you are willing to live in urban areas you may want to talk to a local bank in your market and see if they have any incentives or grant loans for certain areas.  

Hopefully you already worked this out.Aside from HML, there's also an option to do a live-in-flip, where you live in the house for a year and renovate it slowly.

We plan to come back live in it the other 6 months, fix it up more, repeat that process until we can find another deal that makes sense for us. 

You'll need a contact who lives in Philadelphia for a rental license now to put down their contact info for the city.

You said that you are applying for an FHA loan so it sounds as though you'd be living in one unit. 

I am currently living out of state so I have hired a property management company to handle this task, however, my home is still sitting vacant with very few prospective tenants.

Have a frank conversation with the property manager. 

Hey @Jerry Nogueras - I was in your shoes too, born in NYC, and lived between there and Long Island.