Do you think my age will impact my authority as a landlord?

@Monty Alston It has some impact but no lenders will give you credit for having experience building a home unless you have built or renovated a home in the last 3-5 years.

@Melissa SejourRecommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

@Tayvion Payton here's some useful info:Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

An experienced agent would have worked with the seller to do the repairs before they sold, and captured the forced equity in the sale.

Tough situation.Sounds like your mortgage forces your hand. 

There are two types of return from a rental propertyCash Flow & Appreciation.I normally also aim for a minimum of 8% return between Cash-Flow and Appreciation.Appreication, nationally, is around 2% to 3% annually.Therefore, your goal is to get the cash-flow to be about 5% to 6%.The issue is interest rates being very high, you would therefore, need to buy at a pricepoint where the numbers still make sense.You can always put down more of a downpayment to cash flow, but that will impact your cash on cash return calculations.Best of luck!

As an active-duty (soon transitioning) Air Force myself, I know the VA loan is a powerful asset for us.

60k is definitely a hit and unfortunate for sure but it sounds like you have two opportunities to force appreciation up front and collect off the back end.

It may take 1-2 years and by the end you will have forced some appreciation from the renovations but also got some natural appreciation from the market.