@Johanna Anderson, presuming this is a residential property of four units or less, and you're after a properly licensed contractor, then you'll be looking for a contractor who has a state issued MHIC (Contractor or Salesman) license, not a county issued general contractor's license.Also, if you're casting a net to buy an estimate, how will you know that the estimate provided is legitimate or realistic?

IMO time-on-market and other realistic (or, from seller's perspective, lowball) offers are the main ways a seller realizes their expectations are out of whack.  

However, I could absolutely get a pretty good estimate on all of those things and figure out a realistic amount of money i could put away toward investing. 

I've heard 10% but not sure how realistic that is in my market.3) should I really only do a deal based off of cash flow and consider appreciation a bonus?

Depending on what you are looking for, I think it is realistic to find something in the 150K range that may need minimal work if you look hard enough. 

Now, I as I know this area I will tell you this image is a little more realistic of what the houses look like.Now let’s look just to the right of the house…https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7473252,-95.5673003,3a,75y,176.64h,74.85t/data=!

What is the actual, truly realistic - with all its warts - current value of the property?

It's not realistic for the city to require your unit(s) to be Section 8 certified.

Is it true that there is no PMI for these Homeopath mortgages and also is a 5,5% rate realistic or are they generally higher.  

I ask, somewhat out of curiosity, but also because I'm trying to figure out how realistic my own goals are.