Pro-rent control people seem to lack an understanding of basic common sense.  

Also chicken farmers are basically indentured servants for the big poultry processors.

In the end, I had to come in with more down payment than I wanted to.I'm guessing the lenders are using basically the same appraisal companies. 

I basically told them I’m not interested.

The basic concept of a lease option is that people want a good deal of money for the property, but it's close to retail, so flippers and landlords (generally) don't want it, because it doesn't allow for profit.

I'll always accept a referral as long as it isn't more effort than it's worth (basically, if it's a lead I wouldn't want anyways because they want to buy a $100k house 2 hours from me, no thanks).

I am very new to the concept of investing and I have a few questions.

basically if tenants want extra storage, I can charge $x that is separate from housing voucher. 

That basically kills the deal..Any thoughts?

Then if you have left over money after that, I would look at investing it in index funds at vanguard (stocks/bonds) and learn the basics of that.Then after all that, I would spend another 6-12 months (you could start this now if you have time) researching and studying real estate.