I'll try to be as concise as possible, but there's a lot going into this one.  

I found an REO on the MLS monday morning. A quickie set of comps came in around $200k...the cynic in me says plan for $150. It's listed around $55k. I missed it before because it was listed much higher, but at the end of last week the price dropped significantly.

I don't normally consider owner-occupied, but this one's right around the corner from my fiancee's family here in central Connecticut, and she'd like to live closer to them.  It's mostly cosmetic work, but it needs a new roof before long.  I'm also not certain about the state of the mechanical systems.   I'm handy & don't mind doing the bulk of the work myself, but I know there will be a couple big ticket items. If we're going to live there, that gives me time to get to all the small things. 

The numbers are so good that even if the repair work, by the time we're done, is something crazy like 50k, we'd still stand to make 50-100k by the time we're finished.  That's a great margin.  But we don't have the cash to buy it up front (and the bank obviously wants cash only for REOs) so now we need a solution.  

Plan #1 was to have a private lender purchase it and then immediately do an FHA 203k rehab-refinance to cash him out and to give us the budget for the rehab. This was looking good until we realized that I'm no longer a W2 earner, so we can't use me on the FHA loan until I have my business operating for 2 tax years. And we're not certain that her income alone will qualify us.

Plan #2 - have the PL finance it for 2 years, then we refi.  I'm new and I only have one PL. And he balked at this plan. 

Most hard money lenders here won't lend to owner-occupied, so that's likely off the table.

Latest idea:  What if I team up with another investor?  He or she buys the property, then issues a 2-year lease to me set up so we buy it out at the end of the lease?  This carries us through the time we need to get the loan, and it makes some money for a friend.  Using 10% interest annually as a guide, the other investor would make $11k over the 2 years, ultimately earning back $77k for investing 55 (and honestly, if they negotiate a better price with the bank, then "more power to them!").  I'd even be willing to buy it a little higher, if they wanted to make an even better rate.  (I don't want to buy it *too* high, since I'm paying all the rehab costs.)

Is this a crazy idea?  And what else should I be considering?

There's a lot of traffic on this property now that the price is so low. I saw it with the listing agent on Monday and there were other folks viewing it at the same time. Nobody has an offer in yet, but time is of the essence.  

tl;dr - How do I buy & owner-occupy a 55k REO with no available cash and no ability to qualify for a loan for 24 months?