I can afford to long term hold.

The potential seller isn’t looking to sell her house but has another which she received from her father after his death earlier this year and says she cannot afford 2 mortgages.The woman says 40k is owed on the property, ARV is between 140-180k.

Otherwise it’s a pretty good product overall.

Let's pretend here and Say you could do your own Renovations and qualify for a loan and can afford the PITI including PMI.

Problem is anyone who can afford $2k/month in rent can easily afford a $200k house.

Odds are the conflicting information is most likely talking about different markets/products/price points/area grades etc.

You need to really figure out what product type and then do a deep dive into the market to see if it is even feasible. 

You're still giving away thousands of dollars.Either they can afford your rental or not.

A lot of forum members are very knowledgeable in their respective fields related to real estate investing, whether that is real estate sales, wholesaling, flipping, rentals, lending, self-directed IRA and Solo 401k investing, or tax and legal guidance.Discounts on some products and services are offered to BP members: https://www.biggerpockets.com/perks/proIf you haven’t been to it already, you might want to check out the BP blog: https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/The site has quite a few tools that can be helpful for new members.

This way you can move into your own place and also get started in real estate investing.If you can afford to put a larger downpayment than 3.5% then you can always go the conventional loan route and still buy a duplex, triplex, or fourplex.Hope this helps.