But there journey has a lot more variation and they may whip in and out of lanes and go from 75 to 50 and back up again... 

Credibility is very important as an agent/investor who attempts to cater to those clients, I highly recommend using your knowledge to get yourself a property once you build yourself back up financially.  

Could I craft an offer before the hearing that has a very liberal backup option for me?

any websites out there that show historic home values per town over the last 10 years or so. trying to figure out if lake Worth Florida is back up to when market peaked in 2007.

To be honest, I have seen the market pick back up down here in the last couple of months.

Is not dead but on the back burner.

Would I be better suited trying to find a Fix N Flip, pay cash using my equity, do the work myself and then put it back up on the market or would I be better off purchasing an STR with 20% down and leveraging a loan to get some cash flow coming in then maybe pursue a Fix n Flip using the remaining equity and let the STR repay the HELOC until I sell the flip?

Generally will want to see fully finished/turnkey to get a 30-year option like DSCR high credit or not.If you can get the first property completed and leased up and at least get the credit for yourself back up in the 650s pretty quickly then a DSCR Loan should be possible on that one - that can be the first step

I figured this would create some possibility of buying dirt cheap land in heavily affected areas and maybe holding until people rebuild around it and being the value back up maybe??

Example of tasks I’m looking for areWhen: pre-closingcategory: designTask: research on interior designerWhen: post-closingcategory: team buildindTask: find cleaner and backup cleanerThe above are example tasks and not meant for discussion.