Like I said above, limiting to “VA-only” lending would run dry of talking points pretty quickly.

@Carol Kotchek, There's a couple different questions and answers in your scenario that keep it from being cut and dried.1.

Our crew has taken the property down to the studs and we've been drying it out for over 2 weeks now.

Be prepared to not get paid much for a couple months while you get things going, and then be prepared for the market to change and give you a dry spell.Some common expectations with having a RE license is that you'll work in a professional industry full of professional people that treat this like a business and treat colleagues as such; However that's not really how it goes.  

The inspector said the house needed a new roof 5 years ago when I bought the place…When I walk on the roof there are areas of clear rotting in the sheathing under the shingles, it’s spongy as if there has been moisture intrusion and rotting of the sheathing…The roof is bowing in some areas also, and has a couple of curled shingles.

That is the type of tenant that will bleed you dry. 

Then COVID hit Colombia hard and they started having more problems, so they just walked away from all their Medellin projects, including the one I was in, and left us investors high and dry.

I have one house where it's actually more practical to do the laundry on-site (no good local access to send out the laundry) but even then multiple sets of linens mean the house can be done with everything while waiting for the last load to dry.  

It wasn't a lot of standing water and the spots were dry, but I would've accepted a simple "We don't know" in response from the agent/seller.I also wanted to know an estimate of the age of the roof and water heater.

A fish rots from the head down Get rid of the problem .find a way to evict baby mamma instead