The buyer's agreement you make with the real estate agent is a legal and binding document that requires the agent to work for your best interests (fiduciary responsibility).

Buying a single family home in BC. where the average price is $976,400 would require an income of $194,087 and at 20% down you'd need $194k down.

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. 

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

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.

Here in Washington you are required to have a signed checklist clearly stating move in conditions. 

Due to item 1, adding an ADU can require years to start achieving any return (once the accumulated cash flow recovers the initial negative position).4) Adding an ADU is a slow process.