I do not ever bid on a property that I have not seen with my own eyes. 

With that in mind I would keep an eye on the interest rate market and get a HELOC in the meantime.

That would create at minimum, a gray area in the eyes of FHA maybe?  

First and foremost, I would try to get reliable eyes on the ground as soon as possible.

I'm thinking about house hacking to free up cash flow too, but every strategy has its pros and cons, and thats just a backup in my eyes.  

I specifically have a fairly good small painting company (very reasonable, you just have to keep an eye on them to keep the quality consistent) and a granite yard/fabricator. 

They can not actually take care of your property since you don't have eyes on it and let it get trashed.

it's always good to keep an eye on the PM.

Then a couple years later, I recall other banks (and maybe even the original lending bank) looking at that mortgage with wide eyes and telling me they can not do fixed rate commercial mortgages for that long any more . . .

The cat smell was eye watering, to make it worst the property was boarded up for 4 yrs.