Very helpful when wanting to access untapped equity and reduce DTI.

Downtown nightlife has greatly improved.

If I'm virtually wholesaling from out the country how do I go about obtaining the key for the property so that I can give my buyers access to the property?

Basement and garage will certainly improve value but might be a good idea to get a third and neutral opinion on the arv.

Decide how much money you have access to, & the zip codes, city or state you want to focus on.

Hey @Chris Laino ,You'll get the most profits by purchasing something under market value and then adding improvements/renovations.

I am hoping the education and access to MLS will aid me in finding better deals. 

I have access to about 20k in reserves for any unexpected issues. i was thinking of using private money to fund the rehab and refinance the property.

Sure, there are great students in state schools and even community colleges, but those students generally work, don't live at school, and don't have access to the same connections. 

You might be able to improve that rate a tad bit using one of the newer residential mortgage programs that base it purely on the property's own cashflow (some of them will go as low as 1.1 DSCR whereas pure commercial wants 1.25), but the improvement wouldn't be sufficient so as to be worth the hassle/fees/costs/etc, knowing that you're just going to be doing it again in a year or two when you have sufficient 1099 longevity to get a Fannie loan.