On your living situation, I'd shoot for the duplex house hack, it's free to call banks and find out if they can qualify you for a loan.

It must be a primary residence to qualify. 

Keep in mind that banks/mortgage companies only count 75% of your rental income for you to qualify for another mortgage.

Again, an entirely different loan but if you can get a Fannie/Freddie loan it will help you cash flow more...which will in turn help you qualify for more loans later.  

My wife has me come along if her womens intuition comes into play. and now a days she ( and for the last decade or so) she will not show a property until buyer is pre qualified and lender has let her know they can buy.. that weeds them out as well.

. - https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/renting/states-best-...Qualify a Market: Job growth – at least 2 yrs. going upStable Job Market Net positive MigrationJob diversity – a lot of employers in different industrieshttps://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ http://www.city-data.com/https://www.wikipedia.org/ https://datausa.io/ You can Google search above as well.

I will also include a light overview of rehab given to me by a GC or a qualified appraiser in. 

Again, they are really skillful and most of the time done right the first time, on time and on budget. 

If a bank sees you consistently doing profitable deals, that lowers their risk.Personal Property: if you're making the money, you'll get the loan for your personal property in 5-10 years.2 Years Performing Asset: what to keep in mind with all of these "rules" is that they usually reflect rules for a "conforming" loan, i.e. one that will qualify to be sold to Fannie/Freddie as noted above.

I paid cash for everything, it was a huge struggle as I did not qualify for financing.