Perhaps the conventional 5% down, but since I am self-employed and write everything off, I am being told that I would still need to put down 20% and provide a year's worth of bank statements to satisfy the underwriter.My question for the community is: does anyone have any ideas on how I might structure my first deal to acquire property number one?

You could try hiring a structural engineer to do structural drawings for the house

And some are reasonable at both of these things, but can't handle owner-occupied units, or multiple ownership structures, or lack the flexibility to track a real-estate related side hustle.

Quote from @Pete Galyon Galyon Galyon: PREVIOUS AIR BNB PROPERTY   <--------- link to previous Air BnB we flippedSome say that numbers are down for Air BNB and I'm here to tell you it is all in how you look at ( and structure it ). 

The U.S. offers real estate tax benefits like depreciation and favorable capital gains rates, which you can leverage while residing in Canada by structuring your investments properly. 

I see the rentals as wealth building and flipping/development as a job (with ordinary tax structure).

The structure of the loan, which was primarily based on the property's rental income, provided us with the flexibility to reinvest the funds.

How are you structuring that up front and are these folks possibly from the same company, group, etc.? 

The deals are out there when you look for them and can structure them.  

However, one has the credit score while the other has the rehab IQ… how would you structure the deal between two partners for starting out?