I weigh more on making 3x rent and having great rental history of on time payments with no evictions, no lease violations or violent criminal history.

In this case, your monthly payment with 20% down will have a good MARKET rate if your DTI works with a much lower month payment and no mortgage insurance(MI).

Purchase price: $187,000 Cash invested: $15,000 Sale price: $259,000 I got tired of moving place to place and worrying about finding roommate, security deposits and not having enough money to deal with maintaining someone elses home.

If you are going to be an owner-occupant, want a low down payment, and are planning to do a renovation, the FHA 203k and Fannie May Homestyle loans are your best optionsHow do you know the property is currently upside down on the mortgage? 

Purchase price: $187,000 Cash invested: $15,000 Sale price: $259,000 I got tired of moving place to place and worrying about finding roommate, security deposits and not having enough money to deal with maintaining someone elses home.

What's the projected cash flow? 

Some gurus tell practicioners of sub-to to hide transaction from the lender by saying the lender doesn't care as long as the payments are being made.

Purchase price: $72,000 Cash invested: $107,600Case Study: Cockroaches to Cash FlowProperty AcquisitionI found this property through MLS.

I've never heard of a lender that wouldn't count Section 8 payments as income.

Perhaps we "buy" the house from them for the $328K balance to satisfy the lender and don't need a large down payment and then have a separate contract with them to pay $x per month until we've paid the full $172K amount.