I ran my own proforma and used an 8% vacancy rate and a 35% operating expense margin, which are the %s that most banks my clients work with use to underwrite their DSCR loans.

So buy with good margin for reduced income.

Saying you want to eventually "get out of Section 8" is akin to saying you want to eventually "get out of renting to [insert a traditionally marginalized race/ethnicity/religion]"

It's hard to say if a 60k house is worth 40k or 80k, that's within the margin of error based on how much do you consider condition in your valuation.The % based agent commission model does not make any sense below 100k.

I have a plan in place to use entities once I reach a particular number of properties, but the additional protection is marginal at this point.

What they might lose sight of is that banks have underwritten these HELOCs based on the owner's US income only with a margin of safety and without taking any income from the Tulum property into consideration, which therefore represents a second margin of safety.

Also Since you plan to live there for 3-5 years, it’s easier to manage and maintain, giving you time to learn the ropes of real estate.That said, be mindful of high HOA fees, as they can eat into your margins and affect future cash flow.

And it needs 40k in work and the ARV is 55k.Project cost = 50k - 60kARV = 55kThere's no profit margin for a lender to feel comfortable even thinking about a loan.The problem with these micro price points is that almost no lender wants to even be bothered with them.I always tell people if you have 30k, then you can do a low price point deal in a market from Pittsburgh to Indy. 

And the last thing you want to do is be leveraged on leveraged, i.e margin loan on equities for downpayment or HELOC for downpayment.

There are stated or no income 2nd mortgage loans but typically these are fixed term and fixed payment type second mortgages meaning the interest rate usually doesnt fluctuate like a HELOC or home equity line of credit would fluctuate (prime + margin = annual rate calculated based on a monthly basis).