I try to  stay away from the marginal lenders who do not understand the space well and so put in unfavorable conditions on the borrower to try and mitigate risk due to their lack of knowledge.  

I have two options in front of me either to obtain a rehab loan, which will cost me $10k for six months ( points, fees, interest) or just finance the entire deal with my own money (cash).The rehab loan will enable me to obtain an additional property, so in six months i'll have two properties ( one with the loan, another with my cash)  but it'll cost me an extra $10k (on top of the regular down-payment which in any case i'll have to lay out) .

Depending on the duration of your tenant, you can calculate the amount of extra money needed to set aside for this expense.

From about February 2018 we decided things were getting serious and I spent enough time at her house that I might as well put my home on Airbnb to make a little extra income since we spend enough time at each others homes (currently we have made about $10k off of my home on Airbnb). 

Either way there is a refinance so you would be looking at doing an extra loan.

Not really looking for a $700k house but something small to start out with, maybe some extra cash to play around with in the future and a little bit of passive income as I study.

Also, I'm an investor and self-learning real estate agent who has acquired his knowledge from real life situations, books and courses.

@Ayala Shoshan  If you use a knowledgeable agent and wind up buying through them, they'll typically get a commission that's paid by the Seller and you get the benefit of learning from their experience.

Did you have any extra hoops to jump through getting long term financing as an invesment property?

Sounds as though you already have prior experience in different areas of real estate, very interested to hear how you will channel your knowledge base from those areas into investing.Feel free to PM me if you'd like to chat about Birmingham!