Make that rent payment out to you and pick up a roommate.

If you are going to focus on listings only list ones that are priced well to sell before spending your money.

They must be very low odds because insurance companies are in the business of making money, not paying out maximums.

This in turn can open up what homes you can buy since the numbers will make more sense when putting 3-5% down instead of 20%. 

Along the way, we see so many folks make mistakes that they need to get amended and that can take years to finally recoup all of the money lost from paying to much. 

Most if not all of these properties require SIGNIFICANT cap ex rehabs and conventional financing won't touch them; you'd likely need to go the hard money route at 10-12%, 2 points, 12-18mon turn around.

Instead I want to take advantage of the opportunity I have of living rent free to invest my time and money in STR's to hopefully build that portfolio up and eventually make that my main source of income (I understand that will take time).

It’s called TIME VALUE OF MONEY.  

You'll need something like 125 units netting $200 per door to get there, that's about 10 million worth of multifamily in today's money, so you'll need about 3 million in down payments.

refinance our own home with some money down + purchase another flip?