How to Scale after FHA house hack?

[Nik Lavoie]

New investor here looking to figure out how to start investing and scale up to 5-10 small multi families in 10 years (ish?)… hoping the BP community can help!

I am in the Worcester, MA area, and looking to invest either in Worcester or the surrounding towns. I have about 20k to invest (about 15k in backup money I would rather not use not including 401k)

Duplex in a decent area in the city will go for around 320k-375k, triple goes for 390k-470k. East towards boston, similar or higher, west will be cheaper. 

obviously anything i buy would be low money down... after speaking to my mortgage lender, there are programs available where i could put down betweer 3-5%. 

So my question is, is there a way for me to scale up semi-quickly after a house hack considering where I stand now? unless I am missing something, buying anything in this range would mean my only way to get to the next deal would be to save for another down payment, and would need to be 20% because I couldn't use a beginner loan again.

Is this right? or is there a different method that i am not considering? 

A couple notes:

Don't want to borrow from a private lender or family or anything like that... since I am just starting out, that's not a responsibility im looking to shoulder

Girlfriend is on board, but doesn't want to house hack in a bad area. This rules out cheaper properties in tougher areas. 

I know its possible to get cheaper properties further south/out of the region, but again since I am just starting, don't think I would want to go this route yet