As you probably know single note buyers are at the bottom of the food chain searching for undervalued nuggets that have filtered down through the funds (like AHP) who have full time teams devoted to analytics and access to capital to buy large pools of notes at a discount.

Not to say they are always unnecessary, but I would guess 90 percent of those with them don't really need them anymore than the neighborhood kid needs the inch thick gold plated rope chain  he so "proudly" wears around his neck.

I started my search for lenders at big national chains to see the difference, and it was pretty depressing.

I work in Supply Chain and my company offers $5,000 in tuition reimbursement and I make sure to use every dollar of it each year to obtain certificates, etc.

You name will still be on the chain of title, but at least you'll have LLC protection and some anonymity. 

His rationale, if I follow him correctly, seems to be that it produces a cleaner chain of title but also it doesn't void the title insurance policy on the original warranty deed in my name. 

Which is a good thing for you, because here is the next set of challenges, if the chain of title winds up with the grandson's names on it, any liens & fines they have against them get applied to the property.

The same board in which distributes construction permits or is that delegated further up the chain?

There is huge ability to piece meal self management these days. 

I felt chained to a desk in a library.