When house hacking, you need to allocate expenses and income based on the portion of your home used for rental purposes versus personal use.

Your best bet is to understand what FHA is and is not. 

Then of course look up the actual laws as shown above versus just going off others' interpretation.

2) Does anyone have experience with single family versus multi-family property investments in the area?

Any review would be their cost of doing business.Realistically, if you have the experience, contractor resources, and skills to do the rehab, then borrowing money is your best bet.

@James S. your best bet is a local bank or credit union who knows that area. 

And for a NNN commercial it's on the low side as well (not to mention that lending rates have killed the commercial market when heavy leverage is needed).Delaware Statutory Trusts are probably going to be your best bet given your specific parameters. 

I bet those carrier representatives have access to their companies AM Best reports, and would be willing to share those details with you. 

Also, do you give any different considerations for cats versus dogs?

DSCR is the best bet to get something like this done.There are products with no seasoning requirements and products with 6 months seasoning.