Repairs and maintenance are performed following quarterly inspections, painting is done with tenants in place on a ongoing bases and unless I plan a major reno my units are rent ready. 

Buying a property at auction without an inspection is about as far from safe and convenient as it gets.

Based on discussion with my realtor, the first-time buyer couldn't pull enough funds in the time frame and 2nd-time party backed out due to the misunderstanding of the foundation issue with the property.I've been provided the inspection report from previous parties.

I have found that fewer big-city funds are aware of, or want to lend and be competitive in my markets due to the complexity of lending and doing inspections at a distance.

You should have probably got this property for closer to 20k.

But with The Villages being out past Leesburg and closer to Ocala than it is to Orlando, it sort of becomes it's own isolated market. 

We are in our due diligence period now and one of the biggest issues we found during the home inspection was more roof damage than we originally thought.

When you get closer to moving, reach out to me and I can connect you to a ton of people.

So, if you're on board so far I would say the goal would be to maximize the cash flow on both properties as rentals so you can hold onto them with little risk.For home #1 since it has good equity and a short term mortgage, what if you refinanced to a 30yr to bring your monthly payment down closer to $1k/month?

I would highly recommend doing this, just be aware it is a lot harder to pass a VA inspection.