My goal was to take my commissions as a real estate agent and to invest in my first fix-n-flip or to buy my first property to reside in (house hacking) but the time has come to develop a new strategy.Although I found a cheaper alternative to purchase in Long Beach, CA (250 sq ft Studio; walking distance to downtown Long Beach; 3 blocks from Pacific Ocean: $150k list price; $80 HOA; Tenant in place renting $1,200 a month), I did not qualify for conventional financing.

If you have creative alternatives, by all means use them. 

TL;DR - is a/c alternatives to window units a strong selling point to potential tenants?

In fact, it could be argued that it is significantly less risky than the alternative of purchasing a property and leaving your capital in it. 

Alternatively, there are some investors on here that are willing to help - connect with them or message them.

If you are a beginner and live in an expensive market and house hacking does not work for you for any reason (i.e. don't like having roommates etc.)then live-in flip can be a great alternative in an expensive market.

I looked into alternative financing to leverage my equity to purchase the building and hit a wall. 

I’m assuming you had to find an alternate contractor during the rehabs.

Instead of paying rent and throwing that money out the window, I really want to get into house hacking as an alternative to start my REI journey.

., was a learning process for this first investment but better to overestimate than the alternative.