In this day and age, I found the sweet spot for a partner is someone who did not grow up in the States, but has been here long enough to know what's up (5-10 years), but not long enough to get Americanized and entitled.

@Alex Shaughnessy  Andrew is spot on.  

All of you have been in my spot at one point in time, and I am eager to get my feet wet. 

There's a sweet spot ("not busted and torn apart, but also not not updated and current... juuuust right") where the property is traditionally financeable, but severely neglected. 

If anyone is from coal country or knows of a good spot to take a look at I'd appreciate a heads up. 

Special spot.  

Cash or cashier's checks ready to go on the spot.....And backup list of other properties in case you don't get the one you want.

I can spot a water leak from the water bill, tell you how much life is left in the roofs of each unit, and which hot water heaters are going to need replacing in the coming year. 

Your 3 points are spot on and folks definitely need to take those into consideration.  

It it will need about 20,000 in rehab IMO. and may be less, since it looks like the house it's self wasn't involved in the flooding, but I am sure it was pretty close to the bottom floor, if not def flooding the crawl space.