Sounds like if I take your route, I pay theme rent and then exercise my option to purchase on pre agreed to price after property is passed to beneficiaries so that they will inherit and then sell on a stepped up basis?!

I recently listend to some BP podcasts from 2015 and a recurring theme is Josh saying that the market is already very high and people thought it might crash soon afterwards.

You'll soon start to see the same theme over and over.

A variation on the theme which I considered but chose not to use would be, instead of buying the appliances, window coverings, bathroom finishings and landscaping, I could have given the tenants an “upgrade” budget, where I still approve and pay for stuff, but they pick it out and choose the installers and landscapers and painters.

There is a common and very bad theme that title agents themselves can create and prepare security instruments and notes and they should not by any means.  

I'm not taking that as a bias - the overall theme of your post (finding a real estate agent that you can work with, etc) for the future to come is pretty much what I assumed.  

The meds were just keeping it all tamped down, under the surface.One day, I called my psychiatrist for a refill of my sleeping pills and he told me no.  

The brokerage gets constant notices for non compliance from your real estate commission ( IRS bank levies on agents commissions checks for back taxes, license suspension for student loan delinquencies, suspension for back child support owed, loss of license for not paying renewal fees, inactive license  for not completing CE credits on time, etc.)3.

I used to think those types of books were simply wishful thinking writ large, but more and more I am seeing these themes play out in very clear ways.

Once again the underlying theme is "network" need to work on my people skills, ha.