Down the road, restore the garage into a loft-style apartment and add that to the rent roll.The Numbers:Cost AssumptionsAs can be seen above, there are a lot of add-on costs for financing with FHA.

They do historic restorations :)

My niche is purchasing and restoring the 100+ year old mixed use buildings that you can find on Main St. in just about every Midwestern county seat town and then keeping them in the portfolio as long term Buy & Holds. 

I flip fire-damaged properties and own a fire damage restoration company.

The taxes are low because of an incentive for people to restore historical properties.

You always ask how old things are so you can start planning, Older properties will have a higher capex number until things are restored.

I am also certified in water damage restoration.  

Great tip, @Art Maydan, on the Habitat restores, never thought of that! 

The first house I ever restored had the same issue and I was adamant about keeping that chimney for its aesthetic value. 

Fiance has very little desire to share space with tenants, so it looks like we'll be doing SFHs as opposed to multi-families (though I still have hope I can convince her to try it for the first property, but let's assume it's not going to happen).Tentative Plan:-Buy a SFH for $150,000-$200,000 in Phoenix area with a VA loan ($0 down), live in it for 2 years while aggressively forcing appreciation as much as possible, have one or more kids-Buy second SFH for $200,000-$250,000 in Phoenix area (upgrade reason: more space for kids) with another VA loan ($0 down) using remaining entitlement, rent out first SFH, live in this one for 1-2 years while aggressively forcing as much appreciation as possible-Buy third SFH for $200,000-$250,000 with an FHA loan (3.5-5% down), rent out second SFH, live in this one for 1-2 years, not going to try to force appreciation too much right away but instead will spend more time and money building equity in the first two houses-Refinance both VA loans into conventional loans once I have 25%+ equity in both, use the "one time restoration of entitlement" to free up all my entitlement again, rent out third SFH, buy permanent primary residence for as much as I can afford at the time (but not more than the VA maximum) with a VA loan ($0 down) for my now large family to live in forever-Aggressively force appreciation and build equity in third SFH until I can refinance that one into a conventional loan as well to get rid of PMI, then continue on from thereSo, my main concern is affording the second SFH without the necessary two years of landlording experience.