They are trained to fit you into the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac boxes.

Met with 12 different lenders to find one that would fit our situation best.Plan is to live-in and hold for now.  

While I only have about 25K to start my investing career, I thought of an interesting way to potentially acquire the rental property...My friend owns and operates a relatively large landscaping company in our neighborhood. 

Then you take over the property and utilize what ever exit strategy fits best to you. 

They only need to be fixed up as nice as the neighborhoods they are in. 

The neighborhood is full of duplexes and not many single family homes.

Judging how the rents are $475/month, I'm also guessing this is either a C/D area or a very small town, which may contribute to higher tenant turnover, higher lease-up times, higher possibility of missed payments, evictions, etcRepairs at 5% also seems low, especially if I'm correct about the tenant quality/neighborhood this is in.

I just bough my first condo in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

I'm under contract to purchase some smaller multi's in rapidly changing neighborhoods.   

(Just fyi, this isn't an amazing neighborhood, probably B- so maybe tenants wouldn't care?)