If you are looking to invest in Buy and Holds you should be able to get your PM company to facilitate the process of managing the contractor.  

However, it's starting to look like there may be some cost savings if I had my license, and it would allow me to facilitate my own transactions more easily when buying or selling a personal investment property.

You CANNOT touch the funds from the sale, they must go from escrow to an Accommodator who will facilitate the transaction.  

I didn’t use the banks they tried to connect me with but used them as the facilitator to execute the transaction.

Voepel Property Management (VPM) can manage your buy and hold portfolios and can also facilitate and manage the rehabilitation process.

I wish to evaluate Self-Directed IRA vendors and wanted to know if there is a comparison chart out there, that would facilitate a review?

You can even combine that with life insurance policies held by the company to facilitate buy-outs.

CURRENT PLAN:I'm ultimately interested in buy and holds as long term income (SFR<) and plan to direct market in the Portland metro to facilitate flips, that I hope will serve to replace my current job and help fund the first B&H's.

Bc of the timing deadlines, we wanted to make a product that could facilitate these investments quickly and easily.

This also reduces the ongoing fees to the custodian, but will come with a larger setup fee to a facilitator, a company that forms these special LLCs and drafts the accompanying paperwork.