I'd like to start small with 1-2 STR tiny house(s) or other less expensive "alternate housing" options (yurt, airstream, etc).

@Dennis Nikolaev The only alternative I can see is to Short Sale them, if the mtg balance is higher than what you could net from a sale.You will need to talk the Loss Mitigation dept of your lender and hire an Experienced short agent, they will know what to do and how to handle the process.

Hi Shrijan,Welcome to the forum.Personally, I'm not a fan of out of state BRRRR.On paper it all sounds good and great but I've been in the game long enough to have witnessed otherwise.I would always advise doing BRRRR in your own market if possible.There are too many links to a chain with this approach and if one link is faulty, you chain becomes useless.Otherwise, (Yes, I'm bias lol) an alternate solution is buying turnkey.Wishing you much success 

Considering your goal of house hacking a duplex, while FHA loans are common for first-timers, there are alternative financing options to explore:Conventional Loans: Need more credit and down payment, but offer flexibility. 203K Loans: Ideal for fixer-upper duplexes, bundling purchase and renovation costs.VA Loans: Great for vets—no down payment, competitive rates, and no mortgage insurance.Portfolio Loans: Private lenders, good for unconventional income or credit histories.Hard Money Loans: Quick, high-interest, good for investments or major renovations.With $30,000, mix it up—use it for a down payment, maybe pair with a conventional or FHA loan.

True, I never built anything more than a treehouse when I was eleven, but technically a treehouse is a house so…All I had to do was work with Honomobo to finalize the design, get architectural drawings, receive HOA approval, get a county building permit, get a driveway permit, clear trees for a build site, find a logging truck to take those trees to a lumber mill, find a mill, find someone to take the lumber from the mill to my house, dry the lumber, take a semester of woodworking to learn how to make furniture, engineer/permit/build a septic system, get a well permitted and drilled, install a well pump, learn what a pitless is, install a water line from the pump to the foundation, install a pressure tank, connect the house plumbing to the septic and pressure tank, get the the power company to permit and install a podium for power on site, run power to the foundation, connect the power to the house, engineer a foundation, excavate, get two different sized steel wet plates fabricated, pour said foundation with wet plates mounted all at the same elevation in twenty-five precise locations, hire a crane, hire rigger, hire a welder, build a retaining wall because the dropoff from house to ground level was higher than expected, insulate the crawl space on my own by watching a YouTube video to learn how to load .22 caliber cartridges into a ramstead gun and shoot two and a half inch nails through insulation board into my foundation, badger a supply company until they finally delivered the right insulation board, get them to take away the wrong insulation board they brought that was broken by the wind and scattered into pieces all over the property, find an illusive 3x3 foot crawlspace door, learn how to use a core drill to make a four and a half inch hole in my foundation to install a code required fan to vent the crawlspace that my engineer thought was a stupid requirement and failed to tell me about, figure out what the hell going on when the Honomobo project manager tells me the measurements you gave him of the now poured foundation are wrong, have a panic attack, review plans with engineer, realized the project manager was mistaken, scream into the void, get the last available short term rental license application that had a thirty-day expiration window to pass all inspections, coordinate all subcontractors needed on install day, check with the sheriff about parking semi-trucks on the road, rent a porta potty, rent a dumpster, have coffee and donuts for everyone, oversee the Honomobo install crew that didn’t need overseeing, pass a blower test, pass state inspection, pass septic inspection, build a wooden curb to cover protruding rebar for an unpoured patio, build a temporary front door landing that could theoretically be be permanent so as to pass final county inspection, get a certificate of occupancy, pass the county short term rental inspection on the very last day before it expired to get the very last available license so that I could rent the house to make money in order to no have immediately have to sell, pour the sidewalk and patio.

As a viable alternative to explore with a lender, consider the advantages of a 5% down conventional loan, or even less for qualifying first-time homebuyers, which often comes with less stringent property condition requirements. 

As a landlord, that may prompt me to not renew the tenants lease hence they would have to seek alternative housing. 

True private money is a lot of times more expensive then alternative lending.

They are still a marketplace, but are working hard on transparency, data aggregation and reporting for buyers and trying to offer a nice alternative for investors who want to go the passive route.  

They may be able to suggest an alternative (ie you pay some of their guys to do it after hours).