I could buy a purely income property that will give me a better foundation for the future, and live in a mediocre rental (or my dad's spare bedroom, but no thanks).

Keep stashing away from your w-2 job, resell things on Craigslist/eBay/Amazon, sell crafts stuff on Etsy, rent out a spare room on AirBnB (if you own your own single family home), do some freelance tasks on Elance or Taskrabbit - all to accumulate funds for that first downpayment.And all the while, attend some local REIA meetings to expand your network list.Hope this helps!

We use common sense with a little room to spare when we analyze our leads.

If you have a few spare days of your life to waste yes feel free to contact the bank and follow it up the chain to the foreclosure office who will most likely tell you that it is in their files but they won't have a price for it for months and that you should keep checking equator.com for the address (or whatever their website of choice is)Otherwise keep your eyes on it and wait, keep any realtor friends you have checking for it and maybe set some Google alerts.

I want something I can make a little income off of and fix up in my spare time in hopes to flip eventually.

I was also wanting to buy a foreclosure or auction for cheap and work on that during my spare time.

I've got a 27" deep closet upstairs I'd like to convert to a laundry center, and it's looking pretty tight unless I buy some really expensive European compact washer and dryers. 

They can prep you on how the process will unfold based on their experiences and most importantly they will know how the handle the bumps in the road that will inevitably come from purchasing a home through the program.In the end, any client I have worked with that has done a 203k deal ends up satisfied because they created value  on the buy side and now have a house that is renovated with equity to spare.

On the one hand, I live in Cleveland now and have no shortage of tenants to rent the spare bedrooms of my primary residence; however, it would take longer to save as I'd need a larger down payment because real estate is more affordable in Youngstown. 

they make drawer dishwashers that are pretty compact.... but not sure the price points.