Until you meet outside Lender's seasoning requirements, couldn't you be your own bank?

Talk to bankers and real estate folks about local attorney’s, then go meet them.

In my part of the country an upgrade to a system can get pricy, we're talking about new civil engineering plans, permits, meetings with the town, excavators, and new landscaping, its a process....So I have to ask, are you sure you have a private septic system?

You will meet a lot of great people, and many of them will help you along the way as you get started. 

Hey @Juan Chavez,She could access the equity by selling the entire property or bringing in a partner who would like to buy into the equity in exchange for cashflow.Why not put together a small package on your Mom, her income, the property's historical financials and a plan for the way forward and take it to 5 bankers for in person meetings?  

I am delving into this real estate business (flipping/wholesaling) and am eager to network and meet people.

Overall, assuming there is enough demand to meet these numbers and we can buy at these still very depressed prices, it seems like it would be a low floor and low maintenance investment, generate moderate returns for the next 5-10 years, and have very high potential ceiling in the event the area experiences a comeback which many special interests are already working towards.

There is probable at least one person at the meeting who does hard money lending, and they will have local references you can talk to about the experience.

But we were thinking that after 6 months to a year we'll be looking to purchase somewhere else and this duplex will cashflow but not nearly enough to meet the 1% rule.

There are definitely deals still to be had in this market but it's getting more and more difficult.My suggestion to get started - since you're in Michigan, would be to start building a team (and even fly down to meet with people and network) to build relationships with people rather than just trying to do it all from afar and alone.I don't know anything about the Michigan market, or what you're plan is with investing, but Dallas is definitely a great place to buy, but the numbers still need to make sense.