The builder is offering to rent my home so they can use it as a model home for 18 months.. this would prevent me from fully moving in and meeting the owner occupied status.. this is going to be our forever home so if I changed all bills, dmv, work, bank account and insurance to show this is my primary and move into the garage while renting the rest of the house to the builder.. would this meet the owner occupied requirements?

This prevents them from leaving since the neighborhood is safe for their children and also prevents them from making that monthly payment.

@Jon Schwartz agreed the fact that "The Great California Exodus" is even a thing that people talk about definitely throws some unnecessary and misunderstood shade on the state.

What prevent from processing through conventional mortgage?

Supposedly that helps prevents tenants from trying what your tenant did and I've done that ever since for me and my clients. 

My mom & I started playing that cash flow game from Kiyosaki for awhile and I was looking forward to playing it with other people locally but this pandemic is preventing me from doing just that.Will have to jump on that opportunity when it presents itself in the future!

I ask because NY's Tenant Safe Harbor Act prevents evictions during and after the pandemic due to not paying rent resulting from COVID related "financial hardships".1) "Financial hardships" seems very subjective.2) You can currently still take them to court for a money judgement on owed back rent after COVID, but you can't evict based on lack of payment.

After updating I would then be able to rent the place out for $1200 a month.Again, these are made up numbers, I'm just curious if this idea would work or is there something I am completely missing that would prevent me from doing this?

By considering the question he asked, I must admit there is a sense of the fear of the unknown here that prevents me from considering it whole-heartedly. 

My Debt To Income ratio is currently around 50%, which prevents me from taking out a conventional loan.