Because of him I now know where all the weirdos I see at the DMV sleep at night.I just recently started going to a weekly Real Estate investors group meeting/dinner thing in my city.

As a newbie, you should educate yourself sufficiently to minimize the possibility of such happening.

I would go with the 0 interest option and sleep easier at night.

This assumes your credit is sufficient to make sure you can utilize conventional financing effectively otherwise FHA for the primary home will allow the most leverage at 96.5% loan however FHA adds 1.75% of your loan that gets financed into your loan and an additional 1.35% annual mortgage insurance.

I feel that this process will allow you to sleep at night.

In most situations, that will be sufficient to protect you.

Up/Down units can be a bit difficult if the sleep schedules of the two units don't align.

With section 8, I can sleep a lot better.

A 25 year old furnace is sufficient until it quits (usually on christmas eve:))

IMO, LMOs are not be getting sufficient training, reminds me of the old commercial where a financial planner pushes the same IRA across his desk to any client saying "this plan is especially tailored to your needs".