Nothing hardcore scary like Newark, but also not "New York pricey" like Hoboken or Jersey City.If nothing else, I'd fully explore all of these spots before taking the leap abroad!

Basically the owner gets the bill from the utility company and pays the bill, then they use a different company to take in the data from all the submeters collected from the BMS system to write their own bills to the tenants to get reimbursed.  

Although, it would be helpful if she could provide some verifiable data about how many applications she gets when she rents a property, what percentage of evictions vs good stable renters she has had.

It will be owner occupied for a minimum of a year and i currently own my own condo which i will rent out so the multifamily will be my primary home.FactsPrice range for the property is 300K - 500KMonthly payment for all properties i have explored with agent is 925-1230 (all the analysis factored in projected rental income and maintenance and most of them were already rented which gave us the rent needed for underwriting)Current cash saved for downpayment = 45KIncome = 80K (45% is 3000/month)Condo PITI+HOA = 720  (currently FHA)(market rental for similar units in my area is 1000-1200)Total monthly debt + Condo = 2000 (approximately 250 is credit card debt at 0% that can be paid off if needed but have been saving the cash for DP)As you can see i will not have enough for a 20% down conventional and cannot go FHA because my current place is FHA financing (the refinancing process would take too long to switch to conventional).

The Raleigh market is not cheap - unless you are willing to go into seriously sketchy parts of town (definitely not recommended, especially not for a newbe).Once you have an idea as to how much you can borrow "the traditional way", you can decide to move forward or whether to explore other options (@Brandon Turner  wrote the book on those).

Conventional lenders want to see operating data that supports the loan. 

Home Prices Are Surging 13 Times Faster Than WagesSource: BloombergIn yet another troubling sign regarding the affordability of homeownership, new data shows that the growth in U.S. home prices is beating wage increases 13 to 1.

There are some other options we are exploring.

I am really excited to explore the real estate industry as a wholesaler.

Where I live, I can go down to the county courthouse and request a data disk that has all owner data tracked by the county.