I tend not to be a conventional investor.

Digitize physical receipts for easy storage and use a consistent naming convention for easy sorting - 2024.03.25 Home Depot.Maintain proper records, such as contracts, settlement statements, and promissory notes.Additionally, you can track income and expenses consistently using software or spreadsheets.As you scale, if bookkeeping isn't fun, consider hiring a bookkeeper for a couple hundred bucks per month.

@Nick Cooper you can buy with as little as 15% down on a single unit property with conventional financing.

Nonetheless, I am not out to impugn anyone's intentions and I do understand (as Jay rightfully points out) that the self-employed (my situation for the past 20 years) especially run into times in their lives when conventional lending sources are of no use due to limited reportable income and other factors (such as when, for example, you retire in your 50's and begin to live off of your lines of credit, etc.). 

HUD and Agency financing is another beast compared to conventional or non-bank lending (Secondary Market).

Great idea, although conventional and FHA renovation loans are somewhat of a pain to qualify for.

Should we do a conventional loan?

and the entire conventional wisdom of the 70% are there any people who don't really use it all and have found out their ways of making the numbers work Like adjusting the percentage based on the market. 

You can do a duplex though, which might not be a bad idea.With your credit score, conventional might be a good choice, you only need 5% down for 2-4 units if you live in one. 

I sell mostly turnkey Airbnb properties both subject to and conventional, and the buyers list is deep!