However Zillow and Furnish finder are simply going to give you a lead.

Some sellers may not care and those that are in protected class's IE non english or simply not educated might still get taken advantage of..

We have made the decision to list the place for rent and then simply communicate the situation with the tenant. 

I know that - but what I was thinking was simply: well, if the housing authority will pay $1,550 for a 3 bedroom, why would any landlord in the world list it for less?

And anytime you have that cheap of lots that are buildable you can get a building boom that will far surpass normal absorption liike what we are seeing now or saw what 3 years ago  or so.. builders / GCs taking on 50 jobs at once with no hope of ever being able to deliver simply not enough subs and such to keep up.  

Yet, it seems common practice for wholesalers to use this contingency to back out of the contract simply because they have not found a buyer within the inspection period.

just don't do a lease. as others have mentioned, this forces the buyer of the property to take over the lease (if its even allowed/ they qualify) and it certainly does make the property a little tougher to sell. i'm also doing a house hack, and here in CA, its made a world of difference for me. the bulk of our energy usage is in the summer when we want to run the a/c. my bill stays a constant $228/mo (i pocketed the tax credit and simply financed the panels after that grace period). instead of getting an $800 bill in the summer months, we run the a/c at a constant temperature 24/7 on auto, stay comfortable, and i typically get a little bit coming back at the end of the year. don't expect to pocket this "little bit back" by being conservative with your useage, it sort of is a use-it-or-lose-it situation... i think i got $54 back this year.

I have dozens of clients doing this in New Jersey most of which come from no construction background, they simply use preferred vendors we have in place (not GC's) which lowers renovations cost because there is no middle man. 

There were simply too many things about this particular one I do not like so I’m staying away.

If you plan to do multifamily in the "Far" suburbs it can be harder to hit your cashflow targets VS city/near burbs simply because there is limited inventory.