You will find thousands of articles, posts, podcasts etc on basically any thing you want from starting out to situation questions and answers. 

I could (1) put it on the MLS as-is and probably make a few bucks pretty quickly, (2) put some money into it and make a few thousand more than in situation 1 but have more risk and headaches, or (3) keep it long-term as a rental that would be a little better than the 1% rule.

With a loan you would need more liquidity to close and fund so it may be possible that you get 2/3 doors with that 100k, and if you look in a good market I have seen people cash flow airbnb/vrbo for tens of thousands.

I negotiated with the seller and he agreed to do the sale for 450 thousand dollars cash.

We did a holdback of several thousand to cover rent, eviction and cleaning as she was a borderline hoarder.She stayed for 5 weeks and our holdback wasn't enough. 

If you're spending $$$ thousands of dollars on skip tracing that COULD be something to consider but the cost of skip tracing is so cheap that I can't imagine that it would make much sense.

That could easily be a year of holding costs plus thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in fees just to submit to the city/county.  

Thanks for informing me about co-insurance and yes it does frighten me that the estimate of an insurance adjuster can really ruin a person - can't the owner get a quote from a reputable builder and use that?

The fine alone could be several thousand.  

Everyone's goals are different and not everyone has the desire to build a real estate empire with thousands of units, but I do and this is how I have began.Everyone has their own profit margins and parameters.