I am specifically looking in Essex county, MA because I want to house back close enough to my current W-2 job.

But they could just buy the house or condo next door and go to cosco and spend $10k making it nice like my wife does. 

Getting blinds for house 1 pick up blinds for house 2 /3 while you there.3.

Attend your local REI meet-ups and try to find someone who is currently house-hacking or has house-hacked in the past to learn from their experience.

Depreciation Benefits via Leverage: While you can't claim depreciation personally on IRA-owned real estate, SDIRAs can use non-recourse loans to purchase property.

From a leaky roof to a backyard jungle, it was a crash course in problem-solving and patience.I bought it for $145,000, powered through the chaos with a hard money loan, and sold it for $180,000.

If you stay elsewhere, consider relocating to a thriving, affordable market like Charlotte or Tampa, where you can house hack or live in a property before transitioning it to a rental.Good luck!

Have you looked into DSCR loans?

Quote from @Pearse Cafiero: You want to borrow money to buy a house, but you don't have the downpayment.

And IMHO, the prices are dropping big time (on avg. 10K/month...houses that were above 300K a year ago are not selling at 250K now) and the available rentals saturation is worse than I seen during summer season (with rents dropping from 1$-1.08/sqft to 0.8$/sqft and very little contacts and applications...just go in Zillow and look how many rentals are on the market now in Kyle, New Braunfels or Converse).