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. 

we are trained and predisposed to be good at considering and weighing many alternative scenarios, and therefore are comfortable when the first plan falls through and can think quickly on our feet. 

Alternatively, the property may have received a variance or similar exception in the past and is now grandfathered in.

Ultimately, if we could find a financing alternative that was 5% for a good two years - we would be golden. 

Most people on Airbnb are doing it for the kitchen access and cool decor as an alternative to staying at a $100/night box hotel.

Would it be better to find alternative financing through a hard money lender?

Please be sure to select a Solo 401k plan provider which allows you to take a loan and will prepare the required 401k loan documents.The repayment terms are equal monthly/quarterly payments (as you prefer) of principal and interest (e.g. prime + 1%) spread over a 5 year term (or longer if you will use the loan to purchase your primary residence).There are no prepayment penalties and no restrictions on what you can do with the proceeds of the 401k loan.Please note that you are obligated to pay back their 401k (regardless of the performance of your real estate investment).As an alternative to taking the loan, you could even purchase the investment property directly using funds in your Solo 401k (assuming you select a Solo 401k plan provider which allows you to invest in real estate).