Hey Sarah, if the seller has an agent, it’s best to go through them first since they’ll likely get involved anyway.For a property that’s been sitting on the market, approach with strategy.

@Kyle Carter just because a building has all section 8 tenants doesn’t necessarily mean that the cap rate will be higher on exit but it might attract a buyer(s) that are focused cashflow and not appreciation; therefore a lower price to juice the yield.One of my non negotiables if I were you would be to only buy in an area that is desirable.  

It is important to keep this in mind as it might not be neccesary to go through these gyration to only find out you could take the losses regardless.  

If you want to go further, you can use a service like Safely or AutoHost to run background checks.For payments, I’d recommend using a platform like Stripe or Square—they’re secure and easy to set up.

And I know that a refinance would be the best, and most common, way to go. 

You might want to go to Avalara - https://www.avalara.comAnd read up on what they can do to help.When I looked it up on VRBO, they don't list Michigan at all for remitting taxes so I would give them a call.

If an LLC is the best way to go, should I create the LLC in Idaho using an address I plan to maintain in Idaho?

In a busier place, you might just be told to find a GC to "un-cluster' what you did.For me, when this happened, I had to go and hire a certified plumber, and electrician, and framer to come in and certify that all the work my handyman did was correct - and to fix the issues that weren't correct.  

Since you are stating out in RE, I would say house hacking might be the way to go.

We've tried different software, with the same way, but Smarter Contact gave us the best results, so it's the way to go.