My home country's lenders will not consider me as I have no recent track record of earnings and so I wanted to explore getting a mortgage with a US based lender to buy a property in my EU home country, ultimately then moving there and paying of the mortgage from there ... is this possible to anyone's knowledge?

I traveled to almost every country in the World 50 years ago out of California.

Even if you have SSN, if you haven't built your credit score it means that you don't have one and it takes some time, for me it took about 8 months (out of the country) to get a good credit score.Sometimes landlords will take double the deposit in a situation like this.Maybe you can post in Pittsburghs' forum or Pittsburgh FB group and ask if any landlords are willing to rent to you.

Yes, this is a reasonable path to take until you have enough cash to buy with your own war chest.

But, this is a small town in the country and this happens to be in my Sister's neighborhood which doesn't happen very often. 

I’m looking to understand the space before choosing a path.

As a reminder, @Cullum Stirling and I are having a second meetup on 2/17,  5:30 pm at Arnolds Country Kitchen.

I'd imagine things would be very similar, even though not exactly the same.A place to start though; Since the previous survey shows the wetlands, you might be able to contact that surveying company (all company info should be on the survey) & they could tell you how the wetlands were defined & possibly start you down the right path.

That's your path to starting a conversation--"I've done a few successful deal in the past, and I'm looking to grow more rapidly by partnering with an experienced lender."

If you're open to working remotely there are several great REI specialized tax pros here on BP who work with clients all over the country.