Easier to just do it once than twice unless there is some reason you want to give extra money to the State.  

So I have an extra 10-15K right now.

I don't trust him with my money at this point which is why I am here :-)  I am a skeptic and trust is hard to earn with me so I am very leary to do much unless he has some skin in it to.  

Borrow from relatives who want to earn more than they get in a savings account.

Is there any way to get around all of the extra fees and restrictions and paperwork to make this a smooth transaction.

I am in the same field, and I got into real estate and think it works fairly well with education (if your job has some flexibility like mine)...I can recall spending like a hundred grueling hours fighting over half someone's deposit in the legal aid office and stalling the eviction an extra week or two on  technicalities (a noble cause for sure), but they still, of course, were evicted eventually with no money.

Use this time to build up a cushion of extra cash cushion to be able cover the full mortgage payment on your place for three months.  

The misnomer is that those payments are not the buyer/borrower earning equity in the subject property but rather more like a rental payment which only serves to grant possession and not other rights and interests in the real property itself.  

I'd mitigate the worst case by not going over $150K on purchase price.Also, it looks like you have some money, so even in worse the worst case scenario, you could sell and sustain a loss without sinking.In the expected case you will invest about $200K and earn about $20K, a 10% ROI.  

Born in Somalia and raised in California, i attended Long Beach State University and earned my degree in Business Management.