It sounds like your lender is more so a conventional lender/bank.

Hello,I have a preapproval for 3% down payment conventional loan, as I own no property.Haven't found a house I like, I wanna be patient looking for my to live-in house, but I still wanna get a rental property where income covers all costs while looking for my own house.My question is, can I get a normal 20% down conventional loan for the rental, and then later I get a conventional 3% down loan for my house?

Most conventional lenders do not let you take title in an LLC. 

@Mary Pastoral- thanks ....I think you will need to use option 1 as the other options dont appear to be viable to raise the capital needed ....consider a conventional loan for the new purchase as the down payment can be as low as 15% of purchase price ....good luck 

Perhaps the conventional 5% down, but since I am self-employed and write everything off, I am being told that I would still need to put down 20% and provide a year's worth of bank statements to satisfy the underwriter.My question for the community is: does anyone have any ideas on how I might structure my first deal to acquire property number one?

What a great analogy lol Not decided on that strategy, just researching about that specific one.The main reason was because a land trust can be a co signee on a conventional loan and can help with transferring the conventional loan to an LLC later one without triggering the due on sale clause

So, there's a minimum cost to doing a conventional transaction.    

Conventional Loan How did you add value to the deal?

You would have to refinance that property to a conventional loan in order to use FHA again.

The property's location is ideal for short term rental (Orlando area theme parks and convention centers.)How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?