If you are just buying the same house that's the same size in the next neightborhood over, that could pose a problem with underwriting though.

I'm Greg Provin from Lewisville,TX, passionate about real estate investing for just over 1 year.

The good news is he had a very solid explanation for why this was all happening which is what got him over the hurdle.As you mentioned this is lender specific but 620 is the minimum FICO score required. 

Purchase price: $215,000 Cash invested: $55,000 When we talk about long term rentals the goal is to buy something that people are going to live in 3-5 years with the ability to raise rent over time ahead of insurance, taxes and inflation.

In small college town with high rental demandAsk price 745kGross rent: 9750/mth 177k/yr     (differed maint properties with potential 200/mth per unit increase once renovated) estimated reno (190k across portfolio)NOI: 91,475/yr   (12.6 CAP)    (includes tax, ins, listed maint for past yr)     After reno NOI 127,475/yr   (14.6 CAP) Deal info:    - Owner finance 745k 20yr at 6% 20k down minus deposits (~13k)Cashflow  = 2100mth     (self-managed) (self maint similar to the previous owner)By this alone, 2100 cash flow added per month, it will put me at my financial freedom number of monthly cashflow is equal or greater than my families spending amount.

I talked about the same scenario (refinancing conventional from VA to reuse benefit) over here.

With only putting 13K down and netting over $650/month I made my money back in about 20 months - I still own the property and it rents for $1,250 currently.

For the first time I went way over budget but virtually met the schedule goal.  

Fannie Mae's guidelines verbatim are as follows:Must be occupied by the borrower for some portion of the yearMust be suitable for year round occupancyBorrower must have exclusive control over the propertyMust not be rental property or a timeshare arrangement (this has the following disclaimer in the guidelines:  If the lender identifies rental income from the property, the loan is eligible for delivery as a second home as long as the income is not used for qualifying purposes, and all other requirements for second homes are met (including the occupancy requirement above).Cannot be subject to any agreements that give a management firm control over the OCCUPANCY of the propertyThis means that as long as you intend to occupy the property some portion of the year, you could absolutely rent it while you are not using it. 

Very few places in BR that I'm aware of will bring over $2k/month for a 1200sqft 3/2 and those are A/B neighborhoods with $250k+ ARVs.