I had a hard time finding a lender that would lend on this due to the two dwellings for one loan, but the realtor suggested Southwest Funding.

Had a wonderful private lender reach out to me and we had a great run for 15 years.

Find a local lender (probably a credit union as they love these) that offers 2nd mortgages - sometimes called Jr mortgages, HE-loans, or closed-end seconds.

Perhaps a family member, who owns real estate can partner with you to get around the first time buyer restrictions with DSCR lenders.

I have compared them to dozens of leases from around the country and can tell you the BP version is better than most.

And not using a hard money lenders or gap funders.

Why are lenders pushing this?

This might be because their credit score is too low or the house needs fixing.Although each lender can make their own rules about how to qualify a borrower and their investment, like needing a certain credit score; I believe that flexibility is the best thing about hard money loans since it provides each individual with vast amount of options.  

-If you do a long term rental, how do you pay back the hard money lender/private lender (if you use one)?

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.