A giant laundry room, a two-car garage, and a separate living room.

Personally I consider it to be more of a entry level neighborhood for first time home buyers and a blue collar neighborhood for long term renters.

It is always nice to live close to your rental properties (although not absolutely necessary), and as a military guy you are able to choose where you retire to.

Sounds like you've got a solid foundation and a smart approach by focusing on stabilizing this rental before scaling.

I posted on Facebook that I was looking to buy a flip, and a fellow agent sent me some details about a property she was going to list.

Can anyone help me to figure out a good economical, small multifamily builder to contact, and a realtor with lots of this type of experience, or let me know if I'm on the right track with this?

If you're willing to travel and hour and a half and be hands on then you'll most likely accrue more equity in your deal when you have a successful renovation but you're trading your time.

All it took was removing a couch and a TV and giving the exterior a quick pressure wash.

Schlage has a 3 yr warranty on electronic locks and the UPS you a replacement after a few photos and a quick phone call. 

Based on what my real estate agent thinks that this quote will be, roughly, and the after repair value, it looks like I could buy this property in cash, spend a month or two fixing the damage, and then put a mortgage for roughly 1.6x what I paid for it and thus have a cash flowing property at a few hundred dollars per month and a little more money in my bank account ready for a down payment on the next deal.