And you can plug in some assumptions on when money will come back in that will help you understand how many deals you need, how many leads you'll need to find those deals, etc.  

Doing the math, it would cashflow wonderfully on its own as an investment, between $200-$300 a door/mo after 50% rule and mortgage, with some updating and raising rents closer to market rate as a result.The catch here is that I would like to owner occupy my first purchase, partially for ease of managing the property, partially for some lifestyle flexibility (namely pets) that come with owning your residence as opposed to renting.Do folks looking to owner occupy their rentals work out the math on a property including they rental they plan to occupy as part of the cashflow/door calculations or is it more common to try to make the numbers work under the assumption its a 3 unit property?

I would make one note, be careful about BPO's or appraisals, you need to expect there is a lot of assumptions be used.

I never make the assumption that civil service people did their job.

I suggest you find an expert to strategize with in this regard.If you have a qualifying credit score (min 620 + ) and you have the min down payment you can qualify for a conventional fannie mae non owner occupied home with the assumption that this formula results in a positive number (below):75% of potential gross income - PITIA (principal/interest/taxes/insurance/assessments) = positive numberThe above also assumes you have $0 dollars of liability as well in monthly obligations (credit cards, lines of credit, other mortgages, etc).I've checked with my head underwriters on this and have done loans for people who had no earned/working/self employed income or were not even employed at all.

Given that you already have already have a personal mortgage (3.25%, making the assumption); your next loan for real estate will likely be on a commercial scale (closer to 4.5%+, assuming rates stay steady)I made the assumption that you have already looked into change of use zoning for the garage, building permits, and renovation costs... but those should be considered as well if you decide to move forward!

All that changed was they raised the starting bid by $1,000.So if I'm correct in my assumption, they will list the starting bid at what I left it off at previously. 

I have a few assumptions regarding this:1) I do not plan on building it now, so the fact that there is no margin today in the build price (which is what makes it a purchase for future development).

@Chris Kennedy I am not sure if it was mentioned or not, so I am making an assumption that the OP was not a REI when he got married. 

Now, this is based on listings (and my own calculations/assumptions), and I am aware that those do not necessarily represent the actual purchase CAP rates.