REIAs are typically in the evening so treat this as a business meeting that you cannot miss. 

Establish the value based on your own market analysis.Your property is a rental once it is placed in service - typically the date it is advertised as available.Check your home owners insurance policy and make sure it covers rental operations - I expect it does not.

Travel costs will vary, but flights from NYC to Florida are typically affordable.

Typically the maximum loan is the lesser of $50,000 minus your highest out standing balance in the last 12 months or 50% of your vested account balance.   

They don't have to, though it is typical.

I don't typically look at anything smaller than a 4unit due to the challenges with cost vs rent ratios.  4 and above do better for us.  

First get all the utilities into you tenants names if at all possible.I'd put in low flow shower heads first.They make a restrictor that goes inline with any shower head and is pretty difficult to tell its there.Put a brick in the water tank.

Typical deal will probably need about 40% down to break even right now. 

Utilizing the VA loan is a great way to get started with house hacking!

Although I plan on having a title company run a title search and run and O&E report on any property I plan to bid on, I've still spent a lot of time understanding the typical foreclosure property due diligence- looking up the owner and property details on the PA site, looking up the various public records, liens, etc. and trying to understand the chain of title as much as possible.