We are planning to live in the owner's unit and tenants above have lease that is expiring mid 2024.

I also grew up in Cupertino and lived in Palo Alto Napa valley prior to Oregon..

I live in a town of 128k only, in Abilene, TX.  

I live in NY, looking to get started here and I see properties being fixed up all the time.

Some advice:If you are going to live there make sure you spend a lot of time down there first if you haven't already.Bank financing is impossible for non residents/citizens. 

My question is, to finance my first property, should I finance it under an FHA and live in one of the units for the year?

Preferably within driving distance, but I live close to the SC/NC border anyway.

@Michael Frank I live in Northern Virginia and built my prefab home in 2017.

PM me, I live here and happy to discuss.

But if you’re not doing it every day, and haven’t done lots of transactions, and aren’t intimately familiar with the local market on a house by house level, then you couldn’t possibly know as much about things to avoid and best practices etc. as someone who does it every day for a living and has done lots of transactions.