rents work out good, inspections are ok. 

@Steve Wilcox   I owned over 350 of them.. they were not ghetto per se  but some were in management intensive areas... its a JOB  its not an investment. and in my mind is only appropriate for those that are in the business not at all appropriate for beginner's or out of state investors.  

I mean this all depends on the quality of the neighborhood and tenants I guess, but I have had heard some stories that didn't always work out for the better.

Other people have to be paid, everyone doesn't work out of devotion and compassion!  

A syndicated first mortgage can be more complex because the investors want to know who controls the workout scenario if things go wrong, and that's after you go through a length description of how to define "going wrong".  

in other words an INTENSIVE business situation.  

It's just that so many people are giving advice like to invest in an area that you only learned about online and that will never work out. 

I know of a deal whose numbers work out like so:Monthly Income: $1,200.00 Monthly Expenses: $1,016.25 Monthly Cashflow: $183.75 Pro Forma Cap Rate: 9.10% NOI: $4,640.00 Total Cash Needed: $13,200.00 Cash on Cash ROI: 16.70% Purchase Cap Rate: 11.05%N/A N/A (tool sourced: https://www.biggerpockets.com/buy-and-hold-calculator)Pros:2 story home, with 50% equity potential (once the repairs complete).Tenants are paying on time for 1+yrs and each have renewed for 10+yrs each time.Cons:Needs 10-15k in repairs within the 1st 2years.

You can use business entities or construction contracts to partner with an owner, that can also save the cash needed to get in and work out a profit split after your costs and reasonable profit is paid.

Should I move forward with both conventional and FHA in mind so that if conventional doesn't work out (at 5% down), there is a plan B?