This would require two closings, and you would have to come up with money for both.Although FHA is very useful for people starting out, 100k is a lot of liquid capital you can utilize on an investment property. 

Rents are currently $525 but all the utilities are included which cuts heavily into cash flow.

Here's what you're gotta look at that:GROSS RENTS minus:TaxesOwner paid utilities (water, gas, electrical paid by owner)Landscaping/snow removal paid by owner.Property management feeInsuranceVacancy and maintenance budgetsThat's going to be your net rent

Now for the numbers:Current Rents: $72,108 ($68,502 with 5% vacancy)Taxes: $16,759Insurance: $1,234Maintenance & Cap Ex: $3,268Owner Utilities: $2,400I am managing myself.With these numbers, the cap rate at that price is about 6% which is pretty good for the area in today's market, and thus how the seller is justifying her price.

Or you could decide it is a great place to live and continue to live there while having a tenant in the other unit paying down you loan (increasing your equity).BTW: the low/zero appreciation markets do not produce great ROI without going to large unit counts.  

(ie. non-obvious, trap questions to utilize during the tenant screening process).

Hey I am new here and was wondering if anyone is utilizing facebooks advertising platform yet to generate buyer or seller leads?

I am now looking to get into larger properties (my portfolio is duplexes and SFH) so I can utilize the commercial loan side.

We are thinking it won’t  be super hard to rent out the basement and get our monthly payment to around $1,000 including utilities.

Duplex to quad purchased at retail are getting challenging to find that would produce positive cash flow but is still possible in the working class areas (not possible in the hip areas).There is a lot of completion for the below retail properties and there are some people who can rehab RE a lot cheaper than I can and I suspect I can do it a lot cheaper than most newbies.