I tried to persuade him that dealing with this was going to difficult for him since he was thousands of miles away and not a US citizen.

Eric,I should clarify that I am a US citizen living abroad so the lending requirements will be different for a non-US citizen.  

It's not such a big deal until the water is rising quickly and you are cursing the day you chose to take the advice of an internet message board instead of purchasing the flood insurance and your years of cash flow are about to go poof...or glurg glurg...as it were.The FEMA maps are based on probabilities, not on the anecdotal evidence of elderly citizens or even if a flood has historically occurred in a certain time frame.  100 year flood = 1% chance of that area being flooded.  500 year flood = 0.2% chance of that area being flooded.As with any insurance you can forego it and save a few bucks and you win!!...

And the fact that owning rental homes has gotten into the main stream of every day US citizens of owning them.. there is intense interest in this..

@Julie Meche  as others have stated... financing for non US citizens usually requires 50% down in most markets. 

Are you a dual citizen?  

In this context, I am contemplating forming partnership with American citizens with good credit scores so that we can buy multifamily properties together with only 20% down payment.

I have a couple that is applying to rent my house and they are non-US Citizens.

I really didn’t know about it till now but I am not even sure if they can get renters insurance since they are not US citizens (correct me if I am wrong).

I’m a Mexican citizen as well, also have land in Mexico so I’d be using Mex $ to buy the property.