As someone else stated, once you own a property in SC your property taxes will be about triple that of an owner occupied person!

If it's mostly fully occupied you can get a full-doc commercial loan as long as it debt covers.

@Caleigh McDonoughHere are the pros and cons of waiting for 20% down on a mortgage in Charlotte, suggesting starting with 5-10% down, leveraging owner-occupied financing, and refinancing.

There is no differential factor number, however, it will change if you are buying tenant occupied, if they are are going to be vacant at closing, if they are going to stay the full lease or you have to pay cash for keys.

They only get incentivized once it's occupied 

Our cleaning fees for the year were $40k, landscaping $2.5k, handyman $3k... all tasks that can be done by an operator and off set the loss of income from occupying the main house that brought in about $40k for 2024.My wife and I have decided that even though it makes good money, we have been in Texas for a year and we want to do something similar here and we are very much DIY people and don't want a PM company to run it to the ground.

I also hope they inspect at least once a year while occupied.

@Paul Bogard going to assume you are buying this proeprty to live in while you "house hack".First, you should understand +95% of real estate agents ONLY know how to sell owner-occupied properties and are almost useless for investors:(Find an agent that has rental properties themself or can PROVE they've got successful repeat investor clients.Secondly, you can greatly improve your cashflow by renting out your other bedrooms.

You can get far bette financing for own occupied properties.  

The rules on multi-family owner occupied recently changed allowing you to put down as little as 3.5% on up to 4 units.