@Sebastian AlborsIn my experience, buying a single-family home (SFH) in Asheville and house hacking with a family member like your brother can be a smart way to balance costs.

These are multiple assets of all sorts of things, retail, houses, condos, office. 

Once you are on site you can decide if your $20K should be used as a downpayment on a double to house hack (to stop renting), a single to just stop renting, or a single to lease out.

To answer your question condos are better if they allow it but if you want to hop right in it with less risk I would go for a house or multi family deal.

I have 2 options:- finance the construction pre-selling the apt, and take my profits (expected to be around 700K pre-tax); or- finance the construction with a 6-7%/year loan (collateral = my house), keep the 10 units, and once the building is completed in 24 months, rent them for circa 180K/ year gross.

I myself have been trying to find a property in that area to house hack since I moved here for a job.Is there no provision in the lease agreement for land renewal?

I want to refinance it about 12-18 months later into a bank loan. pull out money to pay off the HELOC and enough for a down on a 2nd house or duplex.

We have told my ex-wife that we are willing to let her stay in the house for a time but she needs to pay rent.

I did that out of necessity with my first 2 houses and was able to buy in a nicer neighborhood than I could actually afford because they weren't updated. 

@Erin Colbert You would need to be living somewhere, and you would need to sign the deed restriction.You can live on the couch and rent out all the rooms in all the ADUs and JADUs you wanted - as long as you sign the Deed Restriction for owner occupancy, as well as that would go along with the sale, so you could not sell to investor just renting out the house