@Jeremy PaceThe owner kept the lower unit unrented since he put it on the market to keep it clean and more attractable etc since he wanted to sell.

Then you have a primary residence that is a "asset protection account" and appreciating, while your rentals are less attractive to creditors since you have relatively little equity in them. 

I see pricing in the 4s for 1 million dollar+ loans on multi-tenant apartment buildings.Mark

You will be able to find multi family properties out away from the cities but the demand won't be as high so you may have longer vacancies when attracting tenants.

She suggests holding open houses for rentals as well as a bunch of other free things (Craigslist, etc.) to attract applicants.  

My budget is a half-million dollars and I intend to owner-occupy this property.  

If we are not worried about appraisal, maybe one would remove the appraisal contingency to make their offer more attractive.  

It is in a very nice area where comps are 675k to 1 million.

It's give and take as to if the borrower can live with a certain part of a loan and the lender can.You get more options when you start getting into the commercial loans in the millions to tens of millions.The small balance stuff is mostly banks and some conduit lenders.

Without adding anything to our retirement accounts, they should be worth nearly 2 million in the next ten years with only a 10% annual increase.