Between getting laid off from my job, relocating to LA and the exponential growth of my portfolio, it has been busy!

You would be in an ideal situation to house hack with long and lucrative tours, and would almost certainly qualify for the most flexible standards as far as primary, relocation, etc. 

I do plan on selling my home within the next 6 months and relocating.

What came unexpected to me is how cool the city is becomming - I have worked with a number of young clients this year, who relocated to the city and when I asked them why they said (to my surprise) because Milwaukee is cool! 

Great landlord friendly state and lots of corporate relocations.

I own REI in Chicago, sold a couple of properties in Houston and relocated to St.

. :-)My family and I relocated from the SF Bay Area to Troy Michigan (Metro Detroit) in 2017.

Elon Musk transferred Tesla to Austin area, and Oracle and many others relocated there.  

So the will be looking that the occupancy makes sense … I’ve been in lending 22 years and run a mtg co, was an underwriter for a whilebasically you won’t be able to do a lateral move because then it will be obvious your building a portfolio and it’s an investment, so yea the lenders telling you it needs to be a move up are correct for the most part but closer to work is considered a motivating factor and would work, so ideally I’d buy the first one on the outskirts of max distance you’ll be willing to commute , then find one closer to work with small sf .. it’ll make sense your moving closer to workif from there you buy units that are larger in sf, and still similar or closer distance to work, that’s considered a move up going from a 4 unit to 2 unit , from units to a Sfr, all of that would be considered a move up going l from attached to detached, relocating from work, it just has to make clear sense for your motivation to buy and occupy the new p property other than simply adding to your portfolio 

Pro-rating rent for the inaccessible room could be seen as fair, depending on local laws and your lease agreement.Renter's Insurance: Typically, renter's insurance covers situations where the tenant must relocate entirely, not when just part of the unit is unusable.