Newbie from Boston: conventional or FHA loan on Multifamily

[Corrie A.]

Hi everyone!

Just found/joined BP a few weeks ago and have been reading up and learning a lot! My husband and I are looking to buy our first home soon and are planning on buying a duplex and occupying one of the units.

We're looking in Arlington, Watertown, and West Medford/Somerville/Cambridge. Our plan is to live there for 5-7 years and then move into a single-family and continue to rent both units. Eventually we would like to buy a couple other multifamily rentals. This is more for long-term investment/retirement.

We started looking into mortgages and found out that we need a minimum of a 15% down payment for a conventional mortgage. The other option would be to do an FHA loan, but we weren't to excited to pay all the extra fees that go along with that. We are both Engineers and have strong credit scores as well as making a pretty good income. We have quite a bit saved and are continuing to add, so we will probably have the 15% we need in about a year.

I've seen a lot of people posting about using FHA loans on this site so I'm wondering if there are more advantages we aren't aware of. We would like to get started sooner than later, but if waiting another year will save us a ton of money in the long run then it seems worth it.

Thanks!
Corrie