After Oct. 1st, im going to live with my parents and save up enough money for a down payment on a duplex using an FHA loan, unless I can find a partner to go for a full 20% down with a traditional loan.

And since you'll be living with them, it will affect you a lot more than if it were a traditional tenant that you didn't live with so you'll definitely want to find that out before they move in.

The REO world has several differences compared to retail Real Estate.It is common for the listing agreement of an REO property to have unique or interesting provisions that allow an assigned agent to continue marketing a property as active (even when the seller accepts an offer) until that buyer has performed and the property is sold. 

Honestly, I am looking at cash flow and appreciation as well, I think the RE prices there are very low compared to anywhere else in Southern Ontario and there is a fair amount of room for appreciation.

How do you more seasoned investors go about getting comparable sales data for a potential off market deal? 

They are a great resource at a reasonable price comparatively.

I don't think of it as we do traditional real estate in terms of "out of state" markets.

Does the IRS lien make it difficult to get immediate financing for both traditional financing as well as hard money?

At a very minimum buy your own crummy router instead of paying for theirs over again every year.you can also try adjusting the wifi to use a different channel. search the app store / play store on your phone for wifi analyzer. connect your phone to the wifi analyzer and it will show you the relative strength of your network compared to others in the area causing interference.

Although the average of these 2 areas is around $950, you will clearly be getting very different rents in each of them.The more specific an area (and similar the properties) you can look at to compare rents, the better your estimate will be.