I am aware lenders will look back at 2 years of income history and with me being fresh out of college I am afraid I won't be able to secure financing until at least 6-12 months into my job.Ideally, I can start looking for places to house hack now so I am ready to pull the trigger when I do secure a job rather than waiting to find the job and then find the place.

Get a HELOC on your primary so you can pull the trigger to buy a home when you feel the market drops. 

In this game the scary part is pulling the trigger, especially as we've been pretty conservative...

I would pull the trigger.

Independent of the paperwork, selling a mortgaged home could possibly trigger your mortgage's due-on-sale clause, causing your mortgage lender to accelerate their loan, and worse case attempt foreclosure. 

I see so many good deals in my area, but I don't have the proper funding behind me yet to pull the trigger.

I really appreciate it all and gives me a lot of ammo to think about and revise expectations and rethink strategy.Will continue seeking advise and hopefully will soon be able to pull the trigger on something.

I had full intent to keep it as a rental and can prove that, but I still am a little concerned about triggering an audit.Do you think there could be a good argument to set a closing at 10/10/21?  

After studying real estate investing for a year and some change I finally pulled the trigger and started looking for my next investment property. 

Gulfport is another area that I've looked at but haven't pulled the trigger there yet.