Should I use a 30 year traditional loan at rate of 4.875% and 4000 closing cost OR home equity loan with rate of 4.75% and 550 closing cost?

When the total number of jobs is 637,000, this is only a small drop in the bucket, but it is a positive sign that you would look for in a market.If you create a spreadsheet like the one above yourself, you can literally put in any data points that matter most to you and compare from there.  

If my closing costs would be reduced if the seller agrees to carry a note in lieu of a traditional mortgage, can I offer a bit extra on the purchase price?

If you can put the deal together and find your buyer the financing through a private money lender or a traditional bank that's easy to work with, that's going to make it much easier for you to sell that property and add value than it would be to do cash-and-carry.

Easy short sale transactions generally compared to others when it comes to processing, but tougher to get good deals from an investor perspective due to HUD guidelines.

It is the comparable to homeowner's insurance when there is no house on the property and it is being built.Absolutely you should be "cautious" in hiring day laborers.

Many of my bank contact are fairly traditional.

Then I'm using the 1% rule as a very basic guideline as I compare listing price to potential rent. 

Obviously, they dont want to lose money, and wont lend on a bad deal, so I do my analysis, get my numbers, and then compare it to theirs after they do their analysis.

You need to get real comparables and find out what the house is actually worth.