I think your best bet is to submit an offer at the price that works best for you.

I'd bet you can probably open it in Excel one way or another. 

I bet my weeping tile was not correctly installed (if at all).

I bet if you take a closer look at the tenants in those new centers you’ll find a lot of service oriented businesses like restaurants, dental offices and nail salons.

Best bet: Develop that relationship, follow up and follow up again, assess them to see if they are a good fit and go from there.

If your looking to Flip properties your best bet is to look into private lenders or hard money loans. 

I bet it helps a ton getting experience in a safe environmentI will look into the area, I know there are lots of rental there not a ton of flips or knockdowns.

What's my best bet for securing the financing to a) do the builds and b) hold on to them long term?  

You just have to think what that is.Like you said, most people had to work really hard to get where they are.I'm a firm believer that you create your own luck.I bet that if you really applied yourself and worked really hard in RE you would do just great my friend.

I bet you will be able to get a bunch of help but we need a bit more to go off of.