Though I personally would rent a house on piers over a traditional home assuming everything else is comparable.  

However if you are going to park your funds and have debt on the property a traditional bank will require it to cash flow at 1.2%.  

I've got $2 million in an IRA (invested in mutual funds), $300K in investable cash, and $200K in reserves.

I ran around doing open houses and wasting a lot of time trying to chase "traditional" business.

Non-QM loans allow you to qualify based on other alternatives instead of the traditional DTI method ((DSCR for example when the monthly rents > monthly PITI (principal, interest, taxes, insurance) = you qualify)).

From a PM standpoint renting by the room is going to be quite a bit more work than renting traditional apartments.

I would run the numbers compared to a more traditional hard money loan (a couple of points and a little less leverage) to compare, you may be surprised that you might end up paying more even though there are no points

@Kyle Jones the traditional routes, or "conventional" routes, are the ways that we want to go.

Basically I would have a traditional loan for the remaining amount after five years.

You’ll find a portfolio lender that can do more than traditional lenders and FHA.There are options like 5-10% down but you’ll be 1 point higher.