Conventional 30 year fixed mortgage. 5% down, 3.875% rate.

I don't live in a convention area.

If your using conventional Fannie may and Freddy mac loans the requirements are a little similar but change quite a bit.

@Scott SmithYou can absolutely put cash in a SDIRA to work in conventional assets.The mechanics of doing so will depend on your plan provider and plan structure.If you have a checkbook IRA, the LLC entity just opens a brokerage account.If you do not have checkbook control, you would work with your IRA custodian for this process.Having a smaller stock account within an IRA that holds real estate is OK. 

Having boots on the ground definitely make it easier, I myself moved to Dallas just to do rent by the room here to get more rental income compared to traditional rental and to qualify for conventional loans.

On the flip side, some sellers don't like dealing with the extra hurdles of the VA loan, and would prefer a conventional buyer.

We'd be looking at conventional if the DTI worked out in our favor.

I encourage you to save up a bit more of savings while you educate yourself on real estate investing, however, there are a lot of financing options such as conventional loans, VA loans, hard money, etc.

However, conventional is ideal.

Conventional lending with some of these offers “balloon rates” at 30 year amor rates paid in 10 - at zero down in one of my markets.