Multi-Family Home Financing

[Michael Doherty]

I am in the process of acquiring my first rental property, looking for a multi-family home (2-3 units). I talked with my loan officer and she could only approve me for a loan based off my salary even though my total compensation is double that. She said that if I could provide 2 years of commission statements she could provide a loan based off that (I currently only have 1 year). Because of this I was only approved for 150k for a 2 family and 250k for a 3 family (FHA loan 3.5% down).

My question is, being that this is not a lot of money to work with, what would people suggest both for financing and first home purchase? Would you recommend a different type of financing method or scratch the multi-family home idea altogether and look for more of a single family home to flip and waiting for another year to purchase a multi-family.? Thanks!