Conventional guidelines occupancy requirements are that you’re able to occupy the property for some portion of the year, during the first year.

Your best bet is to get some financing off of a property/real estate you have in the US, otherwise I would suggest friends and family or investors from your country.

Vacancy decontrol isn’t really a thing anymore—if a rent-controlled unit goes vacant, it usually just switches to rent stabilization instead of going fully market-rate.For the occupied ones, your best bet would be a buyout, but that depends on the tenants and if they’re even willing to negotiate.As for getting rid of rent control entirely, it’s tough.

Do you want to bet on yourself? 

Ask questions about their lending guidelines/criteria. 

If they have a guideline that requires you to own/lease your own place, then it sounds like they are declining your loan because you dont own/lease and they are not willing to make an exception.

What's labeled Private Money in the market - an individual looking to build a lending shop by using personal funds - this is out there but these guys are not cheap on points or rate and they have rules and guidelines like anyone else, so really the difference between them and hard money is nothing other than appraisal perhaps. 

Besides the HUD guidelinem we have had HUD violate their own guidelines. 

Your debt to income will be calculated per conventional guidelines and if you qualify with both your current mortgage and the new mortgage plus all the rest of your debt you are good.

It depends on the loan program as there are different guidelines (for example, DSCR, FHA, VA, conventional).