I spoke with a friend who is a structural engineer and he said it looks like it could be pretty bad, so he suggested having someone take a look in person. 

I've never had one but always assumed (I know, a bad word) it was free training to a certain point

I need to consider the good, the bad, and the ugly!

If I had a few successful cash-flowing deals, it seems more realistic that I might be able to weather a bad deal easier.

It also depends on whether or not you are comfortable moving somewhere else if it were advantageous for your investing career to potentially reduce your personal cost of housing.If you're comfortable with leverage, then you should consider looking into a rental property.

i think if investors BEFORE they bought properties that require  medium to heavy managment they should definetly sort out their style of management and sourcefrom what i reading is people are basically tired of bad tenants and other minor thing such as up keep.but if u did a bit of footwork and got yourself some good solid tenants that are trustworthy and would treat your property nice i dont see a problem.. having a residental rent collector and your good tenants and your own contracted mainence is pretty much it..good footwork is always valuable all the time ..people need rental homes just as much as people need owned homes

get a real estate license and list them.. your doing a ton of work and bringing a product to market that wont sell through wholesale channels.. that's a huge waste of your time money and energy if you good at helping sellers.. get listings listings are money in the bank in many areas these days.. and its a career that you can do for a lifetime.. 

I'd chalk it off to bad luck and move in. 

I have spoken to a few lenders but I am having trouble differentiating from a good lender and bad one.

Good idea, bad idea?