He has a former roommate who currently lives in the Twin Cities and he's heard me discuss ideas like purchasing either a SFM with 3 to 4 bedrooms and renting rooms out or a duplex and live in one side and rent the other.My son doesn't have an offered job at this point but there are many likely positions that he could get..and for the last year he's been one of the maintenance guys for a large apartment business that has 3 large apartment complexes around ISU, so he thinks he could at least get a job as a maintenance person somewhere to make ends meet until he lands the full time job.  

So about a month ago, we sent notices to renew our tenants leases, we received a reply from one of our tenants(married couple, great quiet tenants, always pay on time), she said that her and her husband were struggling in their marriage and were thinking about splitting in August, so wanted to know is they could do a shortened lease and if she could find roommates afterwards cause she wanted to stay either way.Anyway I gave her the Five Love Languages audiobook(my favorite relationship book) and she said she would give it a listen.

I thought House-hacking was having a few room-mates to pays most the bills. 

You could qualify for less, need less money down, etc. but could get roommates to help with cash flow and could also decide to rent your property out after a year or two and hold that one as rental.

You're going to have a roommate share your side.

My priority is to find something near campus that I can live in myself with a few roommates to help cover my bills.There are a few houses listed on realtor.com.

She also told me she is looking into other options for living elsewhere with roommates.

I am guessing you cannot count it, or else similarly you can say you would get a renter or roommate in your living space and ask the bank to count it .

As far as roommates and leases go - with each change in tenancy, a fresh lease was written up with the correct tenant names - only the security deposit amounts were handled between roommates.

My current dilemma is whether or not to buy my first property with intent to rent it out, or buy (a townhome or apartment) and live in it (hopefully being able to charge my roommate most or all of my mortgage payment).I know there are loans in which you can take advantage of so that you do not have to put money down when buying your first home, but you must live there.