Depending on what you are looking to accomplish long-term, any of the three options you laid out could make sense (as well as possibly others you didn't mention).I will shoot you a PM in case you'd like to discuss your options a bit further.

I have closed deals in as little as three days.  

Its one of those phrases that mean nothing while sounding good.Are you willing to search courthouse records for hours on in with no compensation other than to learn the process.

I know I can get a lot if not most of the information in these books for free on BiggerPockets, but rather than spending hours searching through past posts, I figure let me just spend a bit of money to save myself the time.I'd be curious if anyone thinks any of these books are redundant and can be dropped.

At a high level the occupants tend to be there mostly on business days during business hours, which means fewer after hours calls.  

I want to make sure we're abiding by the rules and legalities in regards to the VA loan.Also, as an exit strategy, when we have to move after three years, my thought is that we should just rent out the home and the second dwelling so that we're getting more money than just breaking even.

My last three flips cost less than 50k total including the purchase and rehab.....why in the world would anyone pay these gurus a sum like that wow!

I'm pretty sure they were carrying something big after working 12 hours and knocked something onto the screen. 

About an hour later one of the agents came up to me and asked why the ****-eating grin?

I have a three options to finance this deal from my perspectiveOption 1 - Take the principal/profit from the flips that is coming back to me and use that as a down payment (which will cover enough to avoid the PMI) for a traditional fixed rate loan.