There are lenders doing loans outside of Fannie and Freddie. 

What is the best loan for a Real estate investor with 10 or more residential properties thats all occupies with no debt?

Nothing wrong with hard money but if your goal is to keep it as a rental why not look into a Fannie homestyle loan?

Assuming they could finagle a 10% down payment loan and put up 95k, they'd owe 855k and have close to 200k in equity. 

I may or may not need to take out a small construction loan along the way, depending on how expensive things get.

Did they make written demand on you for the value of the post-foreclosure improvements?

This will get you experience in remodels and much lower down side than a normal flip because you are literally living in the house (so you know exactly what is going on and 0 travel time) and you are utilizing a low down payment, low rate program like a VA loan.

That’s the lowest index level seen since December 2023.Looking closer at the components of the index, however, revealed that expectations for the next 6 months actually improved slightly.

I could be mistaken, but the VA has a Construction Loan, not a Rehab loan. 

For example many seller might require 3-40-50% down or a shorter amortization loan (as in 10 years.)