It would be my first home purchase, I have no debt and qualify for $250k with my income . 

I would much rather bring in partners than leverage credit card debt.

By you investing your time educating yourself on Bigger pockets and RE podcasts, reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and to never have any debt, I think you are very smart with all of that and way ahead of many people.  

So if a business has signed for a debt, and even if you are a part of that business, it should not be held against your qualifications. 

Trees fell, fences blew down and every wood fencing company, landscaper and handyman have been working on  getting fences restored.

Being licensed, or not, has nothing to do with being able to own a property....you simply need the cash for the down payment and closing costs, decent credit score and a decent income verses your debts.

Even though I'm not watching TV I'm aware of it and feat currency slowly but steady is getting close to a collapse. 3 shortening the dollar idea was great, here it comes in mind the kyosaki ideas about money and assets so getting debt for assets makes complete sense if this assets cash flow and appreciate,  investors who over bid had in-house construction and great financing arrangements that make sense to over bid and narrow the profit margin. 

Being out of state bring a whole another level of complexity, my advice would be to find a house in a B area in Detroit or in the suburbs, ideally with only cosmetics repairs needed (you don't want to open the walls on a house built in the 30's), find a good property manager, put a good debt in place and repeat the process. 

Once you raise the value of the building then you can refinance, pull money out and put long term debt on the property.

I have a Bachelors degree in a somewhat unrelated field, and have quite a bit of school debt that I am just now receiving the bills for.