@Matt Katsaris rest assured, this is normal practice.There was a lawsuit several years back against a title company that had an employee steal the escrow money.  

But rest assured that 50% of short sales come back on the market, so keep an eye on this one.

I'm close friends with a RE Attorney & he assures me that neither wholesaling or bird-dogging is against any laws in any states!  

And voluntary notification to FinCEN of suspicious transactions that may relate to terrorist activity may be directed to FinCEN’s Financial Institutions Hotline at xxx-xxx-xxxx; and, of course, such notification would still require the covered entity to file the subject SAR in a timely manner.RECORD RETENTION Even if there were no requirement to retain records, it would be very prudent to do so in order to prove what is being done to assure compliance.

As you are aware this house was built in 1962 and I have been assured by an inspector that the stairway met the building code of the time and is not a violation of any current codes. 

I don't think a property management company is any assurance that you would not have this problem.I recommend attorney Jeffrey Tapper for landlord tenant issues.

Moving from a hand-on to a completely passive experience also has learning curves, but I assure you it is much easier once you have been in the mud yourself.  

What factors can I take into account that may assure me I would be ok, is there a population or statistic?  

NLR is desperate for housing and would pay pretty well with some assurances that would be good for an investor. 

They do sometimes start with listing prices over BPO recommendations and they tend to decrease them over time to assure they get as much as possible.