A PMC is great to use not only for all these items but also really being a trusted source for vendors too etc. 

All of the official documents I've found so far point to the national FHA requirements as their source.

That could be another source of where the cold is coming from.

If you offer more $ for the property than the all cash offers AND you appear to the seller to be highly qualified in the method you are using for sourcing the payment, at some point your offer will be more appealing than the all cash offers.I don't understand why you would consider a 1031 for another property in two years. 

There are some public sources (www.city-data.com) that can provide good baseline information.

I will be start out on my real estate journey soon by working for a company and sourcing deals for them.

You are basing your claim of damage solely on the time the seals lasted not on the type or cause of the damage.

This requires a dedicated effort sourcing and analyzing hundreds of deals to find the one or two worth pursuing.  

it is definitely a viable strategy, but many people assume they will automatically be successful solely because... you must make money buying at those attractive lower price points!

The process must be understood and applied to team building, investing your and 3rd party capital, and financial deal structure with debt and equity sources.