My ultimate goal is to become a REI, buy and hold properties for rental purposes.  

I'm asking because I would like to live practically debt free and use the bank's money (mostly) for my investment purposes.

So if it's a "community" bank, their purpose and charter MIGHT be to only serve the community that is around them.

I started at the IRS in 1996 - twenty one years ago, and after I started I was promoted to the Criminal Investigation Division.

@ROB GRIFFIN (or any one else) can't promote himself in the forums.

I'm not promoting doom and gloom, but I am pointing out that for me 1) alternatives to SFR investments exist, 2) opportunity costs analysis tells me that other sectors (small commercial) may result in greater long term value/returns, 3) economic assistance packages for development in tier 1 counties exist, 4) substantial demographic shifts in tier 1 counties may be in play today.

In my area they are very common and usually target SFHs.Something landlords should always keep in mind is that the purpose of screening is to find reasons to reject applicants, it requires detective work beyond simply reading a credit score.

And we started logging progress and availability on a company FB page, cross promoting to local swap pages, and now we have people asking when our next property will be available.

I have this exact relationship setup with my broker, I'm a licensed REALTOR but I don't want to spend my time doing BPO's and I also feel it will be better for negotiating purposes if the BPO is done by a 3rd party.  

For the purposes of this exemption a “Homeowner” is defined as follows: Person(s) who owns a parcel of land on which he/she resides or intends to reside on which there is, or is intended to be, a one or two family dwelling, attached or detached structures accessory to such use and/or farm structures.