I am starting to want to get involved with setting myself up with a better financial future so house flipping and real estate has really caught my attention.

And, as we all should know, it's also why we set aside some rent for vacancy and capex, etc.

In my experience I've kept EM after that set of facts occurred with financing contingency, no big deal. 

In addition the majority of the not so experienced are either out of state (OOS) or planning on going OOS.So I am not recommending against going to the San Diego BP social as much as 1) setting an expectation 2) suggesting you may want to go to a meetup maybe associated with an RE investor club.BTW there used to be a near monthly BP Meetup at various RE investment properties. 

Both the furnace and water heater are set upon cinder blocks which seemed strange at first, but now I believe the sellers did that due to water in that room.

Simple example: if you need a new roof in 10 years and you know it will be 10k, you know you need to set aside 1,000 per year.

Appreciate it if anyone could help with this question -If you were selling land with a set closing date determined and the contract had this clause:"Subject to simultaneous purchase of lot 1B at [address]."

Define your goals,Then once you have your goals set then start reading books to get the fundamentals down. 

Also, not sure how this would be set up from a utility perspective.Even with all those things, living close to free sounds pretty good!

Check out the book set for Life by Scott Trench.