And I read somewhere that the people lending money now have to verify the borrowers ability to pay.

. - an unattended running toilet that is damage, a tripped fire alarm, anything exposed to the elements), I would send a two day notice to cover yourself.

Having the ability to use bank mortgages is just one other tool to acquire houses.There are tons of ways to get property without good credit like seller financing, hard money, private money, etc.

Lease options sound almost too good to be true to me so I'm wondering if I'm missing some partial element.

. - but the ability to manage clients, crews, schedules, budgets, contracts, and the like, is definitely applicable to many areas of REI.

Most investors have the ability to raise capital, the vision to flip properties, and the ability to manage their rehab crew.

You don't have the ability to vet aiirbnb until it is too late

Depends on the lender.Bottom line, you need to know your ability to borrow and under what terms before you get involved in trying to carry out this strategy. 

I'm working on my license now so I can have the ability to grow my business in other avenues when needed.

Making offers through the listing agent can be a crap shoot at best and you miss the opportunity to develop relationships.Generally you will have physical distress with REO's so you need to make sure you have the ability to do any necessary repairs.There's lots of resources here on how to analyse cash flow.