It cannot be touched, or tasted.

You might just as well ask me if the dinner you ate tonight would have tasted better with more salt. 

I wouldn’t reward bad taste.

Buyers tastes have become more refined. 

One mistake and you can sour your taste for investments real fast.You typically need less than 5% for the down payment.

Since this is my first deal, I'm sure getting the full taste of dealing with a short sales.

As mentioned, I planned on doing a 4-unit style building as an owner-occupied to take advantage of FHA (3.5% down), my flexibility on living arrangements, and really get my first taste of property management.

She may say she's cool to do "whatever is best" now, but that may change once she (and you for that matter) gets a first hand taste of what "whatever" entails, and it may be late in the game to change at that point, so the sooner you can drill down to those details, the better ... and always remember my young friend "happy wife, happy life".If it were me and my fiance (who is now my wife), given our temperament, goals, and the current state of the market, we would likely choose to move in together in 1/2 of the duplex, rent, or move in with the folks if we could stomach it (which we could not) to minimize costs and risk, save like crazy, search out amazing deals to flip (but don't buy until/unless the deal was amazing), and wait for the market to correct to pick up another primary residence, bought like a flipper but with the long term intention of turning to a rental after living there.

If there is already a bad taste in people's mouths you are going to educate them gently.

It certainly had the smell of Multi Level Marketing and I still have a bad taste in my mouth from other such investments.