Hey Daisja - we host a monthly Real Estate meet-up with different topics on a monthly basis at the Brier Creek Carolina Ale House on the third Thursday of every month from 6:30-8:30.

It will be remote, but since you live there now, you probably already have connections who either already know the house or local friends to find you good people to service things as needed.  

I had a rental house that burned down. 

I can't house hack because of the family situation so I can't be approved for regular loans that require you to make the property your primary residence. 

You can pick up houses cheap in the area but there is not a lot of appreciation.

I personally am interested in creating a long-term rental portfolio but I'd be interested in hearing any strategy, ie. house flipping, short term rentals etc.

Having previously worked in-house at a hotel REIT that both owned and managed hotels, it was quite common for my employer to enter into agreements with developers of the hotel.

The city has already approved the permits, and the cost to rebuild the 1200 sqft. house is estimated at around $120K.

If you've lived in your town or city for 5 or 10 or 20 years, you will know things about it I can never know and thus you have a distinct advantage over me when it comes to investing - you know what a good price is, what a bad neighborhood is, what house looks good on paper but is underneath the airport flight path, and so on. 

You can change a house.