@Matthew ToporowskiIn my experience, this will need commercial financing since it is a mixed-use property.

Get a good idea on what kind of property you can afford and understanding what that cost of capital will be.4) On the investment side most lenders can lend nearly nationwide!

Quote from @Will Gaston: @Petronella Kerssens what price point are you looking in?

So if a note investor bought this for $40k, spent $10k to foreclose and be in it for $50k and end up with a $25k property - they will not be in business long. 

I live in eastern Iowa, and will be primarily focused on the Iowa City/Coralville, Quad Cities, and Muscatine areas.

Any company insuring your properties without an inspection most likely has a clause buried deep in their policy allowing them to deny claims for conditions found on the property that do not meet their UW standards and they will deny you claim based on "the house should have not been insured with them anyway".Although the inspections can be annoying look at it from the other side.You pay them 1000 to 3000 a year to insure a rental property where they agree to pay out possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars if it burns down or up to 1 million if a tenant slips on a bananna peel and falls down the steps or the tenants dog bites someone and since you didn't enforce the tenant having their own renters policy to cover the dog bite the landlord's policy is paying out.The insurance company is very much like your rich uncle backing your business venture - you run the business, he takes on the financial risk from disasters, and doesn't even get a say in who lives in the property.Your rich uncle asking you to fix the steps, put up a handrail, etc which is in your and his best interest long term.Do you really want to rent out a property with a busted front step and a bad roof that is going to leak sooner than later?

I think the resources that are useful for you will be in the discussions of how to invest e.g. what to look for and how to capitalize it.

write the owner see whats up.90% its not the owner being a slumlord its the area and the type of tenants that will live there are slumlord type tenants.. pretty hard to turn those around .

If we do a long term rental lease we're worried the place will get destroyed by renters.

There are programs available that will allow you to go up to 85% financing on an investment property transaction.