On my street, only about half of the homes are rebuilt, and about half of those are occupied by the pre-fire owners. 

Just read under Occupancy: https://www.benefits.va.gov/WARMS/docs/admin26/handbook/Chap...All the VA says is that you must intend to occupy the property within 60 days, and there are even exceptions to that.

It's fully occupied at the moment with leases into 2026.

Im back on bigger pockets after a long hiatus; trying to start up a STR from a owner occupied 2 family home with intent to advertise on furnished finder. 

is it occupied, or vacant? 

@Sam HendricksenMultifamily is super competitive in this area and you have a huge advantage over your "competition" with the fact that you are owner occupying as most deals nowadays hardly cash flow. 

To be honest, I´m in the Maintenance & Construction for corporate businesses for some US companies in Mexico and we do some Real Estate down here also, but it´s way much different than the US, so I have much to learn from a lot of people around here and as @Julio Gonzalez, I think this is pretty much the right pad and place to start and to break my fears to start all over again from scratchAlso, I´ld like to hear more from @Justin Brickman why he voted for his city, pros and cons, it will help to read from a local...As I said before, thank you all guys for taking the time to write in this post and share some experienceDo you plan to owner occupy. $40k will not get you a non owner occupied San Diego property unless you find some unlikely alternate financing.

A B class rental here is probably different than a B class rental in your area as is the profile of the tenant that occupies it.

My Boulder units have still been 100% occupied, while Longmont and Denver units have had much higher turnover in 2024 than the previous 5 years. 

Also the idea that occupying a 'piece' or 'portion' of property allows for AP is flawed.