Call ahead and ask if they use their own money before scheduling any appointments.If you have a little bit for down payment (3.5%) you could do an FHA 203k or Homestyle Loan.  

I went ahead and terminated the contact knowing that there would be something better to come along.

*DISCLAIMER - long post ahead* (bear with me and I hope I'll make it worth the whole 3 minute it takes you to read)Let me start with a quick story.

In the future once you've been successful then go ahead and change as your goals and situation does.

So I should go ahead and stick with the $250k?

Thank you ahead of time.

We talk about FHA+MFR for countless hours each year, but I can count on one hand the number of these I actually do in that same given year in SoCal / Bay Area (eg, excluding rural California).And for that handful, it's typically a slightly different formula:[ FHA + Off Market + Discounted Price + 2-4 unit = win ]Ain't nothing I can do as a mortgage guy to make FHA not FHA except give you pragmatic advice.

Some of the architects I've talked to over the past year took over 2 years before they got the go ahead from the county to start building.

In other words, how does one really get ahead that much if the majority of that rent is going right back into the mortgage each month?

But if that happens, your visit isn't going to be scheduled ahead of time and it won't likely have a lot of time for fun and relaxation, so the location doesn't much matter.