What do I do if the old owner is a pain, wants thousands, or worse refuses to sell and wants to be stupid like drop a fence down the center of the drive?

With this, you get 13 months of rent revenue for every 12 months of expenses Your tenants have an easier and less painful experience coming up with 2 weeks of rent at a time instead of saving for the first of the month and letting that rent payment cash burn a hole in their pockets (or accumulate during the month and going towards another bill)If they don't come up with a 2 week payment, they might only get a half of a month behind instead of a full month.

Approx. how much would it cost to convert to central heating and how much of a pain is it?

MC used to have some of the best schools in the state and the strongest real estate market trends; these days, they don't have a single high school in the top 20 in the state and the real estate market has stagnated relatively to other wealthy counties in the area.While I'm not presuming this is the sole reason for what you're seeing, it's interesting to note that MC is undergoing some changes. 

Banks look for who will close, the least pain to deal with and of the buyers who will close who has the highest net.

Actually, I have gotten several good listings over the years from people who had houses that I couldn't buy for whatever reason.On the LLC question - I had one at one time and found it to be a real pain in the butt, so I canceled it.

Or I can call my escrow agent who will put the exact text of my PA in the escrow instructions and send it out directly to the seller.

I'm fresh out of grad school, working as a PA in San Diego and saving up for my first investment property.

As you can see dealing with tenants can be a pain if the right structure isn't in place especially when you start scaling.Options open for real estate investing will mainly depend on capital to start and expectations of annual return versus what kind of headache you are looking at dealing with.

Analysis paralysis is painful.