If you intend on managing from afar, I would recommend a great cleaning person that is reliable and that you can trust to go after the check outs to do inventory and clean the place up.

Do i have to have a certain amount of equity in the property before i can refi to a conventional loan? 

Would it be better to bite the bullet and spend the $35k (will be using conventional loan)  up front as a down payment and have a home that could potentially be a rental when I move out in 3-4years or rent and pay someone else that $35k in rent over the course of the next few years.

Conventional, FHA, private money, hard money, cash, etc.

Also, I like to show them the difference in the $$ they would receive between a traditional offer where they cash-out at closing and a seller financing deal where they get interest income over a period of time.Example:  If the Sales Price is $150K and they own their home free and clear:- Conventional Cash + Bank Financing:  Seller gets $150K at closing.- Seller Financing with offer at $160K, $20K down, 6% interest,  30yr Amortization, 10yr balloon:  Seller Gets $237.8K over 10yrsBy showing the a really solid offer on price PLUS illustrating how much more they can make over time by offering financing, you might be able to open their eyes to the benefits of offering seller financing.Good Luck!

@Joseph Brown Join TREIA (Triangle Real Estate Investors Association)...it's about $150 a year, or you can join for a quarter for a lower price...and you can look on their inventory list of investment properties that have been posted by members.

The numbers for this deal worked out as; property cost $83k and is a 2 family houses, 25% down and we took out a 15 year (yes 15 and not 30) conventional loan.

I'm aware of other funding methods but I'm not sure I feel quite comfortable with other funding methods so I'm thinking we'll go with a conventional loan. 

I’d say definitely sell except for one tricky detail... hard to find inventory to buy these days so you might be sitting on that cash for a while. 

Conventional or other?