@Michael PenceYou will want to talk with an HOA attorney, i.e. someone who breathes this every day.

If you can afford it and are open to it, living in one of the units does give you a big advantage as far as a low down payment with a 30-year good owner-occupied fixed rate.If you haven't already seen it, I'd recommend checking out the Bigger Pockets Ultimate Beginner's Guide as it may cover a lot of your questions.Basically, you're going to need to learn how to analyze the numbers on a rental property including income (estimating realistic rents based on what you see on the market for similar properties in the same area) and expenses (especially property tax and insurance).Even if you do owner-occupy I'd recommend analyzing it as if you weren't going to live there (as a pure rental investment) because that will give you a better idea of how the property would perform as an investment, and because someday you may want to move out and it would be good to know if the property will still be cash flow positive if that occurs.If you want to go the conventional route it will tie up more of your capital due to the large down payment, but your mortgage payment will be lower, so you'll have lower risk / more breathing room in that scenario - at the expense of having to wait longer to buy your next property.Also in the owner-occupied scenario you might be able to take advantage of "first time buyer" loan programs, which wouldn't be available to you on a second property if you go conventional on your first.If you're working with an agent to identify properties, usually that agent will be happy to connect you with a mortgage person who can explain some of the programs that might be available to you.

In particular I'd encourage you to learn how to calculate the "debt service coverage ratio" (DSCR or sometimes DSR) as it will give you a good idea of how much breathing room you have with income from the property to pay the mortgage; ideally you'd like it to be 1.25 or at a minimum 1.2.On appreciation, I think in general Providence is fine and will appreciate, but I also think this phase of the market might not have a lot of appreciation left at the moment so I wouldn't "assume" appreciation unless your holding period is 5+ years.Usually I think the lion's share of appreciation in a run-up tends to go to the Boston area, but this time around I think Providence/RI is getting a little more of that due to some folks in Mass coming down to live in RI because work-from-home allows them to live cheaper in RI but still commute easily once or twice a week or for special meetings, if they have to.

But also when you are close to finding a property to buy after what feels like an eternity, be sure to breath.

You may want to file an extension and give yourself some breathing room.

@Helen Lin  Deep breath! 

Also, if your doing the overhaul, don't get it on your skin and don't breathe it without a respirator.

After you do it so long it's like breathing air it is just natural and comfortable to you.

If you do not stand for something , You will fall for everything .
Never give up till your last breath.
You can share your at least one WIN to motivate .

Now that you have experienced that, go do it again.Now you have a little money to breathe with!