Technically FHA does offer multifamily loans that allow for commercial space.  

If anyone has any helpful tips for a beginner looking to start with house hacking, I am eager to learn and willing to use my marketing background to help in any way I can.

I would add looking at online county dockets, several times with different companies I have used for the checks, someones background comes out clean, yet I find landlord filings or crimes, even within 7 years, in online county records that didn't come up in the report.

I have heard about sellers signing over the title, yet still technically owning it, but it makes the eviction more difficult and lengthy.

Not necessarily where you live, but you need to know the background, present conditions, and likely future of specific streets, neighborhoods, and towns. 

So it wasn't technically a loan, it was simply a promise to pay $X,000.00 per month for the next 10 years.

Those numbers are just a bit off for me, you technically hit the 1% rule (monthly rent is 1% of purchase price) but if you assume about 3% of purchase price for maintenance each year I just don't see a profit with those numbers.

Can anyone recommend a tenant screening service that does a good job with a national criminal background check?

Also need a stronger background on finance, so this would be a great help to the development sector.

If you spend under the $16,000 they pay under the Actual Cash Value payment (i.e. no depreciation reimbursed) then you get to keep the remainder... so say you end up being able to get everything done for $14,000, then you get to keep the remaining $2,000 which is not technically a profit, just that you were able to do the repairs in a more cost-effective way than the standard market price.