Still want to buy in 2016

[Tyler Goulden]

My goal of 2016 is to buy my first owner occupied 4plex.  Went to get pre approved yesterday and discovered my credit took a hit from my student loans I didn't know about.  My loans had defaulted a while back and through a conversation on the phone I was under the impression they hadn't defaulted and they were set up on auto pay.  Regardless I have truck payments that I make religiously and haven't missed once, I signed up for a credit card yesterday (that I will only use for fuel and will pay back in full every month), and I called for my student loans to be put back on auto pay and after 10 months they will be back out of default and I can pay them off in full at a much smaller principal.  My problem is because of the hit my credit took it dropped to barely over 600 and with the credit cards and truck payments it will rebuild but very slowly.  With a minimum qualifying score and a credit rebuild that will probably take my till 2017, is a hard money loan worth the risk for my first property?  If I ever run into private money I will do my best to make that work but private money seems very hard to find, but hard money on the other hand seems like a big gamble especially with my lack of experience investing.  So I guess what I am asking is what would be the safest yet easiest way for me to still accomplish my goal of 2016?