Park your vehicle a couple houses down and walk by the house a couple times and see what you notice.  

A lender (bank, credit union, second tier) is going to look at your income and your ability to service your existing debt (credit cards, vehicle, mortgage, rent, etc).  

We all need an insurance company for our vehicles, for our medical and for our general insurance needs.

After doing research and soul-searching, I eventually decided that real estate is the most interesting and exciting wealth vehicle for me.

Monopoly taught us a valuable lesson we took for granted in terms of green and red houses and hotels, but the real key to the 'real' game is to change your perspective from being an earning employee to an entrepreneurial acquirer of assets - through your lifetime, and ideally, onto your heirs lifetime(s).Focus on asset accumulation, whatever the vehicle or vehicle(s), and you will see a vast horizon beyond your current 40k mental construct. 

In South Carolina you may absolutely call or go down to the Department of Motor Vehicles with the subject property serial number or VIN.

I own a small business currently, and I thought that was going to be my vehicle to freedom.

And this doesn't include other investment vehicles.   

There's also a nice size garage on the property that I would be using for my vehicles I store, if I cleared it out at some point, that could be rented as well, possibly could look into a separate meter, garage has its own driveway its separate from the home.  

Point is, payroll companies don't have insurance that will be the same as yours, they may have WC but don't necessarily need to have CGL, Excess, Umbrella, or Vehicle, so basically their advice is not solid enough.