And @Andrew Postell I will definitely try and prioritize local mortgage brokers over hard money lenders for the potential long term investments. 

It turns out the person living there is mentally handicapped but she was a tenant for a long time.

This will give them a mental bias.Should I just rent out the place and let renters use their own untainted judgement about the house?

I am not of the mentality that I have to assign it or double close it to buy it or to resell it to another investor.

Can someone that prioritizes their financial freedom, makes between $50,000-$100,000 per year, has no rental properties, and a net worth below $100,000 explain to me why they would even begin thinking about other ways to build wealth and not immediately move towards this objective?

especially if you have legitimate buyers I would prioritize the deals.the quickest way I know how to get deals is to do Direct Mail. 

I guess I'm so conditioned by the "if it's a smokin' hot deal it won't see the light of day (buyers will be running for it)" mentality that I usually gloss over a lot on the Meetup listserv.But I also know that has a lot to do with my inexperience and fear.

for me, i'd only take PM recommendations from other seasoned investors in the area who have a 'like' tenant base and 'like' sized properties to what you're about to buy.my partner, who managed our property, put in a LOT of work each month chasing people to pay. we always collected, but the amount of effort it took to get people to pay the small fraction for which they where responsible was ridicules. section 8 mentality is something you should understand before buying a building positioned for that tenant base.all this said, we were able to get above market rents with section 8 ...but we worked for it ;-) check with the local section 8 office to see how much they pay so you have a benchmark.i'd underwrite this one conservatively.

This global mentality shift in asset values will lead to a paradigm shift where the world no longer wants paper fiat currency.

I also have 15 years of government operations management experience managing multi-million dollar budgets, including real estate transaction, and currently am the Chief Financial Officer for Santa Barbara County's Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Department, where I am responsible for managing a $106 million annual budget for FY 14-15.