Was it a collection for small claims, or was this big boy court exceeding $3600?

A reasonableness standard is applied to negligence claims and I would argue a property owner who owns real estate in the Poconos and knows the property is left vacant due to the owners decision to lease the property as a short term rental should know that the pipes are more inclined to freeze and therefore should install heat tracing lines or other measure to ensure the plumbing lines do not freeze.

PPMG claims "...an average length of stay of 5.3 years

But, the seller will never close a sale until the buyer releases that claim and withdraws the affidavit because a new buyer's title company will not issue a title policy and the new buyer's mortgage lender will not make a mortgage loan.Its not worth doing in this case but when real money is involved it is pretty effective.

Deductible: This is not a coverage but rather your portion of a claim.

You lose all power when giving your money to some hopeful person called a syndicator who often puts little to no money in the actual deal and whose only claim to fame is that he may have an over hyped deal.

That is what the security deposit is for and if need be, the small claims court system.

I guess I could do some work-arounds -- maybe reserve one unit in the first purchase for use as an AirBnb, and reserve my own time in it when needed - instead of claiming it as a primary.Are either of you (or anyone) familiar with a finance product/loan that will allow me to purchase under $150,000 (w/ strong credit) and do much of my own work and live-in a portion as a primary residence?  

The programs that claim high success, over and over again, are the ones that appear on these forums a few years later with students making claims about misrepresentation by the programs. 

For govvy loans, the Due on Sale clause will be available to your note holder - having an LLC take title to the deed (most commonly via a quit claim) will expose you to this clause.