Where do you live, and where are your units? 

I buy homes as a primary residence with 5% down and move into them keeping my previous as a rental and the area that I live doesn't have new builds that would work for us, otherwise I would buy a new build. 

Since then I have located the area where they entered and sealed it off, however I'm having trouble killing the ones currently living in the attic.

@Felicia Vinces it sounds like you missed our Year End Live show and Podcast of "Real Estate Notes Show' where 2 15 year experience note investors break down what makes a note valuable.  

Now the living room and 2 bedrooms that just had new flooring put in them 8 months ago are ruined from the leaking water from the HVAC and have to be replaced again.

Quality tenants aren’t going to live in D properties.

But IRS allows an IRA to be invested in anything except life insurance and collectibles.

I'd recommend working with a good strong property manager that lives in that area that can check on them.

I am a wholesaler, I live in Memphis but do most of my work in Nashville as a primary market and Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona and anywhere else I can find a deal from networking for multifamily and land.

With current interest rates, and they are at least 1% higher with potentially additional points for non owner occupied property, it is hard to find properties that will allow for positive cash flow after paying the mortgage, if you are looking for money for the down payment from a private lender, those are normally at higher than market and I am not sure it would be possible to pay it off.... please remember you need to take into account that you may not have a tenant for a certain amount of time, a tenant may stop paying rent, or you will have a big ticket item to fix, so I would wait if I were you and save to have enough for the down payment and closing costs and perhaps some money set aside for repairs. you also want to make sure that you have your own emergency fund outside of the money needed for the investment property because life happens ....