I'd start by looking at where the money is going and how to increase your income and lower your spending. 

REPS requires you to spend over 750 hours annually and more than half of your working time on real estate activities.

Why would you spend the money on an appraisal now?

Feel free to reach out if I can be of any assistance!

I would just be spending half as much and getting half as much equity.

Lots of fakes out there so be careful.And its not so  much they will steal up front money from you.. but you waste time and money finding a place thinking they are going to fund you put up non refundable EM spend money on inspections only to have your deal die because you got with someone who cant fund or never could fund. 

So I don't want to spend $90K on a down payment and closing costs and only have $25K to fix it up.

Or, can you spend a little (or a lot) more and find a home that you'll be able to move into sooner and with less stress along the way?

I can pretty much guarantee that you will loose WAY more money trying to get out of the lease then you will spending the extra hundred dollars or so to paint an additional room or two.

But I was also sent a document stating that a county housing assistance program was guaranteeing the tenants security deposit (which was accepted by the current landlord) but not for the full lease term because the tenant is no longer receiving assistance and that the guarantee would only be until 2/2025.