I knew zero about real estate (and had zero interest in REI, due to some bad experiences in the past.) I

Thanks so much for your great advice in the past. I

If you are high net worth enough you can get good advice but the advice for mass affluent folks in real estate crossing 2 countries is harder to access in my experience in the past. I

One quick shortcut I've sometimes used in the past is to do a Google News search on the specific neighborhood the property is in, and see what kinds of stories come up. 

The house is a couple hours away from where I live so I first looked up the sale/purchase history of the property and saw that there has been a HUGE range of fluctuations in its sale/purchase price in the past, I can't quite tell what's been going on.

If I could have changed the past, I wish I would have chosen option 1. 

Basically I needed a project manager, and since he claimed to have helped real estate investors in the past, I felt like this could be a successful partnership. 

In the past I have NOT included appliances with the lease.

In the past, I have had some success with negotiating with tenants a cash payment (e.g. $500) in exchange for them terminating the lease early.

The main issue I have had with situations like this in the past is the type of area the seller now lives in as compared to what they would qualify for rental wise with a bankruptcy on their record are often night and day and they have a hard time coming to that realization that their life is about to change in a major way.