As Chris mentioned it works the same, however, the tax credits and incentives may be different for a primary home vs a rental.

You mention $3k monthly taxes? 

And then as others have mentioned the seller would have to be okay being in second position.

One strategy I like to do is build in seller credits into my offers so the loan covers the closing costs, e.g. if you wanted to offer $500K for a property, offer $510K with $10K towards closing costs and that $10K is supported by the loan and can be used on the costs I mentioned above.

I see the chart but it doesn't have Reno on it and you don't mention any numbers for Reno to compare with that chart.

Do you think it's wise to hypothetically save up a large down payment while also waiting for interest rates to decrease in order to make the move into a house-hack?

You mentioned using an FHA loan, but that poses some real challenges in the city for a three-unit building because it's very difficult to find properties that can pass the FHA self-sufficiency test.

The apartment that I lived in just after that in Houston has gone up by $900/month in rent in that same time period (not to mention the giant disparity in value).

You still have the concern you mentioned.  

I bought a property (apartment in a building) with a tenant in place and planned to wait for him to leave and put an AirB&B, but the HOA said that the minimum lease time should be 1 whole month and that they (the HOA) had to verify and approve each tenant.