I know there are a few videos on youtube worth watching about how to generate your own leads and with minimal amount of money you can use options such as direct mail, signs, a website where distressed owners can input their information and it will relay them to your email. but definitely worth looking into. 

the sellers know that you can add units so they massively overprice whatever pile of garbage is sitting in the front of the property... 

@Eric Patrick Oden, that approach works however the difficulty lies in selling 30 POH for $10,000 cash (or even $5,000) to potential tenants in a reasonable amount of time.

Are there opportunities that will arise from Hurricane Florence passing through and all of the massive flood damage?

You'll need to have a net worth equal to the loan amount and 10% of the loan amount as liquidity.

This is because students move from different cities for school, so the amount they are willing to pay for a room won't vary too much from city to city (whereas the family rental market depends largely on the local economy and average incomes). 

I know how buying a house for a primary residence can become an emotional decision which increases the amount a person is willing to pay... but with attempting to pick up a long-term buy and hold, at least in my experience, the profitably is largely determined at purchase (and of course subsequent to this, proper tenant screening and management of the property).

I'm finding that the loan amounts at 75% LTV are too low.   

I currently have a part-time job which allows me to start saving up for it and I have been able to save up a meaningful amount since I started working a year ago which I put in the stock market for now. 

To me I mostly look at 3 things to determine the quality of the investment 1) the return on investment 2) the amount of time the investment will require.