Just be willing and prepared to make it a long-term investment to get you mentally and financially through any bumps in the market going forward.Good luck! 

I graduated college may of 2024 and was only working part time through college not making enough to be lendable obviously.

Is it worth it to go through the proper process with the city and run the risk of a huge expense to make this a 3rd unit? 

I went through similar experience when I purchase rentals from a turnkey provider in Indianapolis.

My advice would be to underwrite as many house hack opportunities as possible and assume 100% vacancy + a large capex item so you stress test your worst possible scenario and can you get through this.

 I have been researching and browsing through bigger pockets and different real estate investment info but haven’t pulled the trigger on anything.

Please let me know if you are interested, I will walk you through our data and call transcripts so you can see some real world data in the Hawaii, SoCal, Washington and Tampa markets.   

The only two ways to rectify this are (1) purchase the property far below market price or (2) significantly increase the property net income usually through some method of “repositioning”. 

Additionally, the price point is still cheap enough to find the 1% rule and positive cash flow and it's super landlord friendly (so you will never have to go through a 12 month eviction or anything close to that!).

A prudent investor doesn't seek quick riches through shortcuts.