Take a house that sold at a low price twice in the past.  

I think if you can nail that down you will be able to find a market easier.As a buy and hold investor some of the things that were important to me when deciding on a market were landlord tenant laws, price to rent ratio, housing demand, ability to build a team, large population 500K plus, multi-family availability and some other factors.take the process step by step and you will be fine. 

Buy a house using your parents' money, then manage it for them while living there.

The house was purchased in October and is still in rehab.

You have to dig a little deeper there are questions that need to be addressed and VOE's filled out with specifics in order to use certain incomes and "stipends".Similar to a traveling nurse who get housing, meals, and other income. 

Think about what everyone else is doing.For reasons that I can’t quite grasp, someone decided that people who want to, need to, or have to sell their houses are the ideal audience to target.

If you want good contractors out there quickly , pay their price and pay it quickly . 12 months is too long , we can build a 3000 sq ft house ground up in 3 months . 

I live in Tacoma, WA…a lot of folks don’t want to deal with having to learn the local housing laws.

If the house is funky, it will be funky after you fix it up..

Hey @Dalton Foote - I highly suggest  using a renovation loan and house hacking a multi-family if that is possible with your current life circumstances.The 203k and homestyle renovation loans are just amazing products and drastically help you reduce your risk, in my opinion, because you are able to leverage the cost of the entire renovation with such a low down payment loan.We work with a lot of clients who use these products in Chicago, and no matter what, in the long term, they gain great equity.If you aren't able to house hack - the process is essentially the same, but just with more money down with hard money or conventional construction loan.