We felt the property was ONLY good for that purpose, which may or may not be a good thing, but for us, it was not really what we were looking for.We did find out that not all properties in that area can legally be run as vacation rentals, it has to to be permitted for that, and from what I was told, getting that permit for a home that does not already have it can be a lengthy process.  

So I was depending on the rents to to increase my approval amount.If this is the case should I find another banker and if I do how do I go about it without running my credit multiple times, further bringing my fico down?

We weren't planning on going into commercial real estate this soon but here we are, trying to learn what we need to to get it done. 16 unit building/ bank owned 15 units currently occupied.asking price 295kaverage current rents 600-650/unitMy question is do any of you know of commercial lenders that do NOT require seasoning with your down payment?

I recommend looking through MLS or redfin.com to find anything tagged as a short sale and putting together a list of agents/brokers that deal with them.Contact these agents and let them know that you are interested in short sales and maybe make an appointment with them to to discuss exactly what you are looking for. 

If you're a sophisticated, deep-pocketed investor who can go toe-to-toe with them and use them as one of many sources for your deals, then by all means, go for it.If you are a first-time or inexperienced investor, an out-of-state investor, an investor working with limited liquidity (under $1M) ... don't get near these people, they're out of your league.

This seems like its quite common with house hacking but i am still determined this is the route i want to go to to the great benefits of the VA home loan.

If you defaulted on this loan, what collateral would your loan documents point to, to secure your relative so he could at least come out whole.

My recommendation is paying slightly higher wages than what they're used to to instill loyalty and build a long term relationship.

After all that there was about 15k left that I had access to to pay down loans or close on another location.

Also, if you have a decent balance sheet, you may want to establish a line a credit with a bank to to fund faster and avoid the appraisal and loan funding requirements.