If they have owned the property 15 years, due to Prop 13 they pay an artificially low property tax (relative to current value).  

The economy is humming and we have very low unemployment (3.8%).

Nevada has relatively high sales and use tax but the gaming industry produce a lot of the revenue as well helping to keep property taxes low.  

Does anyone have any suggestions or pointers for a Credit score, lenders/broker, location, down payment amount (15%?)? 

Unfortunately 98.7% of landlords that are selling these type of properties, do so bc of low rents and bad tenants… so you will have to solve that problem.

Have you spoken with a local credit union? 

For example our bridge loan product is ok with your debt to income being to high at the time of purchase as long as the debt to income will be low enough to qualify once you rent (or sell) your current home. 

The cost of living is extremely low compared to other cities and you can still many many positive cash flowing and 1% deals here.

I've seen commercial property in the area go as low as 6% cap rate in that case it would be valued around $2.1M.

Consider obtaining a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC).