Would be curious to know percent of home rentals per capita on average.

closing cost is generally 2  percent of the deal.Some sellers ask to have all of it paid for and some buyers ask for the seller to pay for it.Generally in a normal market , it is split in the middle which is 1 percent.

If you can't even collect .5 percent monthly rent of sales price I'd definetly look elsewhere. 0.75% is probably a good cutoff where it may be worthwile to buy to live in now as an investment strategyThe out of city/state move is often the best, but it requires more work by you.

There are other options like portfolio and asset lenders, but your rate is going to be in the 6 and 7 percent.  

It may go up 10 percent a year and also make you pretty good cash each month.Then you get more equity and money each month. 

The seller owes you “pro-rate rent” a percent of the rent they received for the percent fo the month remaining.

The returns would then be divided up as per the percent of each of the investors.

This brings me to another question: with an FHA loan, are 1st time home buyers allowed to put more than three and a half percent down?

I ran into this a few years ago when a company cut everyones pay by 5 or 10 percent, so even though i had an offer letter that stated i was to get paid X, if I “choose” to return to work after they announced the pay cut, i had accepted the new rate, if I didn’t return, I had quit.

Check your area for local, Facebook real estate investors' groups.In my experience, a lot of newer investors believe seller-financing is a hack to getting a property for no money down, but unless you're buying from a family member who trusts you, you still have to come to the negotiating table with twenty to twenty-five percent down.Why are you looking to purchase using seller-financing?