Fund Duplex With Part Time Job?
I am new to real estate investing, so this is probably a newbie question. So where I live in Albany you can buy duplexes for 30k-50k. Granted these are in some of the rougher residential neighborhoods, not quite war-zones, but very very close. Personally I've lived in worse neighborhoods so fear for my own safety is not the primary issue. Currently I rent, have four roommates and we pay 2.3k+ monthly so 583 each. This includes all utilities.
It seems to me that if my brother and I just bought one of the duplexes, we could live in one of the units and rent out the other to help pay expenses. As far as I can tell even if we didn't rent out the second unit, the mortgage on a 50k property would be less than what were currently paying, even when you account for tax and insurance. The main thing preventing us from doing this is that were both full time students and only part time employed so we couldn't get a mortgage when we called banks.
1.) Other than having a cosigner, do we have any options for financing?
2.) Or should we not seek financing and just save up our money for later?