Ultimately, I don't NEED a house/condo right now, although I do want one and a place I can call home.Ideally, I'd like to invest in my local area and find a duplex that I can owner-occupy, but again the market down here is so crazy.

Also as was mentioned before, it must be owner occupied for at least 1 year.

The whole neighborhood is being transformed with the help of other fix/flip investors and one owner-occupied house.PHASE 1 (complete): Remodeled a 1 BR house that was vacant and now rented for $850/month.

Two Denver area cities that had been silent on the issue of STRs -- neither supporting nor prohibiting them -- have new laws or are about to pass new laws to proactively legalize non-owner occupied Airbnb. 

I'm going for either a duplex or a triplex, living in one of the rooms and occupying the remaining spaces.  

@David Walbolt I have attached a more detailed image of my layout (Image 2), but essentially there is a space between Bedroom 1 and the Living room that is occupied by two closets that share a wall.

My guess is that locals/ council members feel as though the ratio of STRs to owner occupied homes is out of whack there, which would indeed indicate market saturation/ a tipping point in regulation.

DSCR loan requires no income verification for non-owner occupied properties.  15K won't buy much house though. 

If so, you can go with a conventional loan , FHA loan (3.5% down, you need to live in it for a year) or a non owner occupied loan (25% down) and get much lower rates than the hard money route. 

The property consist of three units and I am occupying one of the units.