I would shy away from using student loans, there's usually wording in them that specifies what the money can go towards, and you would be borrowing money in order to borrow money, that is a very leveraged position.

When that position is "in house" it's easier to train them to produce the results we expect with a partial re-paint.

I currently live in New Hampshire, and have one cash-flow positive duplex- which I scrimped and saved years for while building credit.

I know every tenant has to have a first rental at some point, but good people 99% of the time have good family willing to help them out to get that start.My point was more-so that if the PM and landlord agree on qualifications (which should be driven by the experience of the PM and their market knowledge), then the landlord is in no position to blame the PM if the tenant goes sour - we can't control the tenant's life, only mitigate the risk/damages.

Community Action, churches, Salvation Army is good for $250 every 12 months, etc.  

We would then live in one unit, use two units to pay the debt service and operating expenses, and the fourth unit goes to the lender/investor to pay off their position.

Would I be selling the benificiary position of the trust?

Hello @Gillian Gegawin action is the most important step in life.

I will be cash flow positive above my $2250/month mortgage/ins/taxes.- My goal is to follow Scott Trench's ideas in Set for Life and hopefully rent a room for under $1200/month to save some extra cash and use it along with my current savings to buy and house hack a duplex/triplex/fourplex in 4-12 months in the Oakland/Emeryville area.- I consider myself very handy since I have renovated my entire house 99% by myself and pulled permits. 

were I to buy in la, i would go the HRA route and house hack, but i still don't know if i can get positive cash flow with the prices here unless its a foreclosure.