Is house hacking A Grade properties a bad idea (as long as the numbers work). 

@Rhonda Wilson, You're anticipating the classic exit strategy from a career of 1031 investing. 

So we are currently stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA. We bought a house here in a Oceanside with the intent to rent it when we move. Everyome was saying how they wouldnt be able to rent their own house becaise how high...

I'm hosting and often bring my lawyer's perspective with me to the conversations.We do "Best Deals" and worst deals (we call them "Bad Beats") episodes, and some contract forensics/deal post-mortem episodes as well.The main idea is to learn from both successes and failures.

They have bad credit, but the husband has now worked an ok job for a solid amount of time.

I spent the first eight years of my military career processing things like this so let me know if you have any specific questions or concerns.

I too did the same thing the exact same way in Fresno, CA a year ago now and couldn't be happier with the progressed I've made with my investing career.

There are no tail winds to speak of to carry you through bad decisions, but good cash flow opportunities exist.  

  $1500 clear after all experiences isn't all that bad for this time in the market for a MF. 

You can invest in a good or bad two family in RI or Mass equally, but having a a 20 minute vs. 1 hour daily commute, or being able to see family multiple times a week vs once or twice a month can be pretty important.So I would say choose between those areas first, then when you're ready to start analyzing specific properties to see if you want to put offers in on any of them, there are a lot of resources here on Bigger Pockets for learning to analyze properties, such as the rental property buy and hold calculator.I don't do a lot of owner occupied purchases for myself at this point so the Conventional 97 is new to me also (and has only been around since Dec 2014) but it looks like there are many pages comparing it to FHA so I'd recommend just spending the time to research the differences a bit.You'd want to make sure that if you use a mortgage broker s/he is licensed in RI and Mass (if you still haven't decided between the two), and I'd say to make sure when you are comparing the two options that you consider all the monthly costs (e.g., including private mortgage insurance payments in addition to the regular monthly principal/interest payment) and that you consider all the up-front costs.