re: Need advice on buying a rental house

Yeah, I mean you could get an FHA if you wanted to. If your father is offering though (and you want to avoid fraud), put down a big chunk (20% or more) on a downpayment so your mortgage will be less.

If you don't want to deal with your father (or have his name on the property), you can take out a conventional loan. 5%, 10%, 20%, whatever. If it's below 20%, you'll accrue PMI, but it'll stop once your equity "gets up to 20%", if that makes sense. Keep in mind, if you tell the lender or bank that it's an investment property (you aren't going to be living in it), then the MINIMUM you need for a downpayment is 20%.

What I did for my first couple homes, is I put down a small downpayment (under 20%), lived in it for a year, then moved tenants in, and I moved onto the next house. So I was doing what they loosely termed "house hacking". So in my mind, I beat the system