If you buy less or take cash out you will pay tax on that amount. 

All end buyers can see it on the market now and can buy it direct so what would the point be of you locking it up on assignment and then asking people to come back and buy it when they already could have bought it without paying you spread in the middle.

If you're looking at buying a rental or house hack in the Triangle, then you should consider short term rentals. 

Buy a duplex or triplex or quadplex with an FHA and live in one unit and rent the others.

There are two types of return from a rental propertyCash Flow & Appreciation.I normally also aim for a minimum of 8% return between Cash-Flow and Appreciation.Appreication, nationally, is around 2% to 3% annually.Therefore, your goal is to get the cash-flow to be about 5% to 6%.The issue is interest rates being very high, you would therefore, need to buy at a pricepoint where the numbers still make sense.You can always put down more of a downpayment to cash flow, but that will impact your cash on cash return calculations.Best of luck!

My goal is buy/hold.

We are in both of those markets for fix and flips & buy and holds.

And even if they do, they have to be fairly motivated to be willing to do so (even if you've built rapport and all that good stuff).If they are motivated, usually that means the property needs work and they almost certainly won't lend over and above what you buy the property for.

I work closely with many buy and hold investors and would be happy to share insights or explore ways we can collaborate. 

I went in one day and manager asked if I would be interested in buying a shell that was in default.