A $12.5k mortgage is quite steep and ties up a lot of capital in a primary residence, while renting offers flexibility and allows more of your liquid assets to work toward generating wealth.

@Toyin Dawodu  Thanks for the offer, I may take you up on it.  400 deals, wow!

Another idea would be to ask if they would allow you to visit the place to see what offerings other landlords have in the area.

They taught me how to professionally engage the brokers and sellers and submit all-cash offers using THEIR cash. 

If someone made that offer to us, we would either reject it or expect the owner to get it completely right.

Owners mistakenly ASSUME all PMCs offer the exact SAME SERVICES and PERFORM those services EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, so price is the only differentiator – so, they often select the first PMC they call or that calls them back!

Either way its good to buy end of year as most builders and sellers are offering seller credits or builder credits to use towards closing costs or to buy a rate down to help get a lower payment.Even if you wanted to buy a strater home like a 2-4 unit as a primary again you only need to put 5% down. 

I realize there are not many banks that offer this.

That said, the fewer units a property has, the easier it is to manage, so smaller multifamily properties can offer a good balance between cash flow and simplicity.

The fact they ask you to do this is not only a red flag for obvious reasons, but also because, they should know better how risky this is for you and if they had true good intentions they would have understood that and not offer you that option.What you can do is tell them..