I've got about $525K in equity in the property, but lenders have told me that I cannot get a HELOC to access that equity for additional purchases because the duplex was financed as an investment - they have said TX law dictates that HELOC can only be used on primary residences.

Loss of use is foryour additional expenses if you can not live there due to a covered claim (ie.

;however, my issue is that I dont have good credit and since im self employed I make.very little income. 

Additionally, it's easy for a house on one lease to get absolutely trashed by the renter.

Furthermore, whole note investments benefit from an additional 0.5% annualized yield and are entitled to a share of any extension fees charged to the borrower."  

Figured there would be a few data points left out of the equation' that I would need to circle back with :) .There are additional units not rented at this time which could be rented to increase the income.

If you can add a legal ADU at $25k in the Austin area then you should add it.  

If the price was right on Turn-key maybe, but probably more of the fixer-upper that can be leveraged later on for additional property or sold for a nice profit. 

I pull permits for removal of load bearing walls, addition of bathrooms or bedrooms, addition of footage.

I agree with the others here that say you need to have some skin in the game, if you are going to live there yourself, get an FHA loan rather than owner financing, you can get a 3.5% down loan, personally I do not love these as they require  PMI which is an additional expense, and you also need  bring additional funds for closing at least for taxes, title, attorney and transfer fees . borrowing from anyone else for the down payment, to include a personal loan from the bank is not a good idea, those again will be higher int. rate.