It seems odd that a child not connected to a marriage could keep a house from selling.The oddity is that a man passed and failed to protect his wife by having a will. 

Putting more EM down (don't go crazy, but do more than average for your market) makes your offer look much stronger and you're still protected by clauses and the contract to get your EM back (but remember, the seller does have to sign to agree so it can tie your money up for a while!)

Hey @Amanda Louise Sanchez, congrats on setting that goal and also taking precautionary steps to protect for the downside.

The initial beneficiary should be you if you want to get the Garn St Germain Act protection.

I'm also glad we live in a country where agents like @Jamie Rose can protect themselves from bears...no initial meeting or ID request can prevent that!

Without letting the insurance company know that he will be the one doing my work, I plan to utilize his expertise and know that he won't lead me in the wrong direction.

The problem with this is that (1) the deal they think is ‘great’ is probably mediocre at best; their lack of experience and expertise causes them to either mis analyze or exclude information , (2) the ‘off market’ deal they found is not off market, it’s just not listed with a broker, and (3) with no money or experience they don’t bring anything to the table worth an equity position.At best they might be able to obtain a broker fee.

As I believe @Roy N. was mentioning, you could partner with someone who would provide the down payment but you’d have to give them some pretty good value in return I’d imagine (expertise, property management, etc.)

I wanted to know what the best wording for my lease to protect me if I'm paying the utilities?

Ultimately I got it listed because of the nice tax credit for rehab and I wanted the building to have some protection in the future.