Once you complete your first deal your anxiety will be diminished but maybe not gone.  

It diminishes your competition.

@Wells LangeClosing costs.However you will typically hit severe diminishing returns, and then you hit crazy land, well prior to covering all closing costs.Below is from a random rate sheet that happens to be in front of me, this isn't a rate quote etc and I'm not licensed in Georgia anyways.Note how going from 4.25% to 4.375% then to 4.5%, things kind of make sense - they are paying you 40 or 50 basis points to take a higher rate, for each incrementally higher rate. 4.5% to 4.625%, you hit diminishing returns and it's only ~15 basis points.

My remark about inflation was that monthly installments do not increase nominally so real cost of borrowing diminishes over time and cash flow increases.

This could diminish your downpayment in return for a higher interest rate.This may not work since I am guessing the reason that you are holding off now is access to capital?

You say the property would be diminished if the garage had to be removed.

Appraisers constantly build their knowledge base through experience, forums, symposiums, field work, and resources like the MAI - the comment about 1970's calculations demonstrates an ignorance of fundamentals - not the least of which is the economic law of diminishing returns. 

Provided the option is non-transferrable (which would be how you set it up), you could re-let the property and let the clock run out on the option.If you wanted to find a new tenant-buyer for the property, you could cancel the option and refund the remainder of the option fee (remember a component of the option fee is a time value which diminishes the closer you get to the exercise date).  

Acquiring financing is obviously important and the idea that an LLC may diminish my chances/options is one to think about.  

As a large number of markets around the U.S. increase in price, their ability to cash-flow or provide favorable rates of return diminish.