I hope you are staying safe in this difficult time. 

Thanks in advance; this question seems to come up from time to time 

My understanding at the time was that I may not qualify any other way.

I have said it before and I will say it again, my wife’s friend said it best when she said “The last time I trusted someone, I had twins.” 

We both are in W2 and want to take this RE journey one step at a time, baby steps(scale the next 5 years and further).

I'm planning on buying a small multifamily first and foremost so I have a place to live and then will either buy a single family or another multi family depending on what I can find/fits my criteria at the time.

If you have a 20 year timeline, I'd probably recommend B areas closer to the city or in the better school districts in the suburbs for the highest combined ROI over that time period.Right now you can expect to find decently turnkey multis for about $60-$125k/unit usually all at least hitting the 1% rule in that range.

If you were able to build equity over time, it could be smart to sell, pay off your loan, and use the money for another venture (flip, investments, etc) if it is truly bleeding you out.

That moratorium is supposed to be temporary.Mind you, while the US used to have (some of the) lowest interest rates in the world for the last 15 years, this is no longer the case and the US actually has some of the highest interest rates in the world nowadays and that doesn't look to change any time soon.

Trying to get a split level (not a lot of sqft) on the market in the next three weeks and trying to decide on whether to open the wall between the dining and living room for a feel of openness or leave it as I have heard from two interior designers that the open concept is on the way out as we are more at home and liking our separate areas in the home.Pragmatically speaking the opening of the wall will be mostly a time drain with it being a load bearing wall and having to support the ceiling while rebuilding and all the drywalling necessary.