After the third time, we tell him we want to do a pilot study of life bulb longevity and energy savings.

You either need to become an expert and do SEO yourself or hire an agency that has a complete plan and roadmap for getting you to a place where organic motivated leads are flowing to your site at a rate where you are taking down profitable deals each monthMike Plactere of We Buy Long Island Homes Fast is a perfect case study of someone who used this approach and is dominating his market.  

Can they prove how long it takes to rent a vacant property?

And the people who were able to get loans in the last several years had to go through a difficult process of proving to the bank that they could repay the loans so the borrowers were more financially stable then the average borrower of 2006 to 2010.  

This holds true for realtors, especially contractors (I want one who talks about how he is going to do the job not tell me about how awesome he is when he built this and that and this and that, they talk to much they are snake oil salespeople) Unfortunately I have autism which makes it hard to know who to trust, but I did learn that if someone's the best they don't need to try proving it to you all the time.

Are you really planning to buy four houses with the stipulation that you have to live in each (or at least prove intent to) for a year and all for under $417k?  

How are you finding deals, and what strategies are proving successful for you?

We currently lease a property and house the men, but for the price and our program it is proving to be unsuitable.

We currently lease a property and house the men, but for the price and our program it is proving to be unsuitable. 

I have decided to keep Kevin on the job to finish after he explained his side and proved to me that my money didn’t go to waste.