Don't make the rookie mistake of overlooking build quality. 

After some extensive research, learning the market is obviously a must know or have an idea about.

@Stanley Yeldell, welcome to BP! 

They might be willing to give different terms especially to a high net worth person that they can likely make money on cross selling.

You could get everything in writing but you'd have to evict if purchase didn't go through.

You could make this work ST, MT or LT, depending on how you approach it - the key with unique grounds is owner-provided upkeep and service built into the listing and what permits allow. 

I make around 180k living on the west coast.

Its simple in practice, however you need to make sure the numbers work.

When I learned about the situation, I knew I wanted to help preserve the family property and also create a solid investment for my future.

You can quickly see why looking at this graph - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/buying-vs-renting-house-in-...You can see how in 2015 the average mortgage was cheaper than the average rent, so it was easier to make the math work with light value add and just buying single family homes.