She refuses to do so, bc he has legal issues and want qualify and meet the lease requirements.

We’ve gone through the process of doing an application and submitting the required documents, and our lender is saying our combined income is too low, even with a significant down payment. 

It's that message I have an issue with because real estate (most of the time) requires leverage (i.e. debt) in order to grow successfully.

My town is pretty ADU friendly, is that an option (requires bigger chunks of cash or lending options)?

I am also on the fence considering that NPR is not that desirable a community. 100K purchase price with a $900 odd rent amount would go a long way in better, more stable cities.

If you can get a local agent to pull a list of recent transactions, you should be able to estimate, based on the photos, what your target property will sell for post-renovation.The repair budget is the list of repairs (with estimated costs) required to make your target property look like the "ARV homes" you found above.

You can ask and see what happens.Otherwise you need to come up with the 50k or whatever is required to move forward.Maybe you could see if your lender would bundle the 2 places together in a package?

I graduate in May and will be taking 3 virtual classes to finalize my requirements to seat for a CPA exam in the summer. 

If the city is ok with STR's, I then check to see what permits are required for STR operation.

Its like anything real estate related maybe 10% will succeed with anyone's training but that's OK the other 90 has the right to pay for the training if they so desire even though it wont bring any tangable results.