@joe @Joe McCall, you mentioned earlier that the vacant for rent by owners are good LO prospects and that vacancies for 2-3 months is a good indicator. 

My main takeaways are:1) I need to actually contact some LO's to see how I stack up to the qualifications.

If there's any questions that you have about the areas, or need someone to go lo ok k at a house and take pictures or anything, please feel free to message me at anytime!

Well that sounded somewhat reasonable, I guess...but I decided to look up her address on the county tax assessor's site, just to verify that she had actually sold her home, and lo and behold, Sherriff Sale...she had defaulted on her mortgage and been forced out. not easy to do by the way...

For example - a great area isn't enough in-and-of itself to make a great l-o deal.Now, if you want to get this under contract and wholesale it - first off, does the seller have any equity?  

House Passes VA Loan Bill on 11 Feb 2016This is something you might want to checkout, since it could effect your options.http://www.realtor.org/articles/house-passes-va-lo...

Ask the LO to look at your credit.

The LO doesn't even know what he is looking for but he knows he has to look for everything.

So as long as I classify myself as a business(LLC, license, however that's done) a seller can allow me to take care of repairs and maintenance as a master lessee in a sandwich LO scenario? 

Generally when I get pre-quals in sensitive situations I call on on the LO/Lender and inquire as to how much work went into prequalifying the buyer.