I also must move from my current house due to health issues (it has way too many stairs) so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone here and just owner-occupy a multi-family investment property.

In three months they could lose a job, be transferred, have a health issue or death in the family, break up, or a myriad of other things.

I'm currently in Indianapolis, Indiana and I'm planning out my future house hacking journey before I leave Cosmetology school around September 2020( I started school around June 10th 2019 and I'm currently on leave due to some health issues).I've been a unmarried homemaker for the past 3 or 4 years, I'm currently building my credit (I'm around 600 so far), and I plan on working part time as soon as I graduate from beauty school.

Current dilemma I have is which financial number really matters; CAP rate, cash on cash returns, IRR? 

lenders / underwriters are  often picky regarding any perceived " health and safety " type issues ...rotten decking would fall into this category .....ideas  1) change loan programs / lenders  to see if this issue can be  tabled   2)  possible to patch the holes and  fix the rotten areas  versus  re doing the entire deck ? 

In general, if the improvements have to do with “health and safety”, you can pass it through.

My properties are in low C'class neighborhoods that many would call D'class.But I rent primarily to health care facility workers who are well-educated in infection control and are flat-out paranoid about bringing home health-care-facility superbugs to their families.

Building the tiny house taught me that health care wasn't actually my passion and decided to change my career to real estate.

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/ky-legislature/2020/01/03/passport-health-plan-restart-work-west-louisville-headquarters/2803609001/Should be another boon in the area.

Here in Kansas, the health and safety inspections of motels is done by the Department of Agriculture.