I am not unique.

If you stretch it out into many small payments, it's much easier to forgive when they skip a month or two.

Would investing out of state be a better start since our money would stretch further?

I know of a couple anecdotes with folks offering seller financing - enough to say that these are often very unique situations. 

So a house at $150K might be a bit of a stretch.

Just saying there are products out there that you can use to achieve your goals without stretching the truth or lying by omission.Pro tip of the day:  There are numerous no income verification loans for investment properties on the market today (business purpose loans) that require you to close in an entity and you can use a new LLC. 

Does your property have unique features not typical in your market or is it recently renovated? 

It's not a game by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve been actively working to repair my credit for the last two years. My debt to credit ratio is down, my payments are on time. What’s really dragging down my score are the late payments shown on my record for debts ...

clearly I am interested in Real-estate investments but im in a unique situation; not your average out of state investor.