Almost always, the operators, large and small, need outside help from either a legitimate consultancy or a regulatory law firm or both.

So you can buy a house and then sell it for a profit, buy you cannot have someone else buy a house and you get the difference between the seller cost and the buyer cost.I have been told by a real estate attorney, that if you want to wholesale in Ohio, you must have a legitimate down payment involved, that you are willing to loose if the deal falls apart ($500-$1,000).

Both of those are legitimate reasons.

Or is this a scenario where I might legitimately charge some small extra amount for the basement (such as for storage) - or otherwise just keep it locked off separately from the rest of the house?

Just make sure your references are legitimate and get their permission to talk about them.

Russ is a wealth of knowledge and he legitimately loves to help people out.

My landlord is interested in selling the property, and the prospective buyer wants to raise the rent to $1000 (which is fair market value), and my current landlord wants to know if I would agree to the rent-raise for the remainder of the lease, in order for the sale to complete.My landlord is concerned that the sale will not close if I don't agree to the rent raise; however, in the interest of fairness - I did sign the lease with the legitimate expectation of paying $800 per month for 6 months.

During all of the above, try to find some other legitimate reason to reject the applicants.

All legitimate lenders I am aware of charge origination fees, usually 1% to 2%.  

I am not telling you what to do, but you do need a legitimate reason for denying them.