REI is a full-contact sport.  

Unless there is some kind of approval from the PA Department of Revenue on the exact language/method you rely on, parties at the closing are taking a gamble.

Another avenue may be an accountant or if you are an athlete, you could talk to your sports agent or your financial guy.  

Multifamily investing is a team sport. 

Of course, all of this assumes that you have the financial discipline to stick with the plan and not blow the account on a nice new sports car or something like that ... if this is not the case and you do not have this discipline, then you probably should not be investing in RE in the first place.

I think @Clint Moore is right about the predatory lending rules being tough once you get into lower loan values.I've never tried, but I guess technically you could try to hope for a good appraisal and take out a larger loan... could be a gamble though.Could you do a HELOC on your primary residence and use that to buy the duplex?

Who can get the biggest laughs at the sports bar?

I don't like gambling, I only like to make bets I can win.

Oh, one last thing: there's a tribal gaming casino planned to be built in the southmost-central portion of the city which people take as a great benefit or the end of the world, depending on how you feel about gambling and/or money. :)

More specifically, the plan is to buy a Seawind 1190 Sport catamaran and name it something cheeky or profoundly meaningful.