He even asked his assistant if he could get the chat turned on.

I just invested in batch leads (wasn't happy with prop stream) and am using a virtual assistant to help cold call some absentee leads from there.  

We profit about $1200 a month from both units.

They provide one-on-one assistance from my specially assigned   advisor if I need more extensive assistance for an hour a day during zoom, in 15 min interval appts.

Hopefully, you can meet genuine people that want you to succeed and will assist you in your endeavors without trying to take advantage of you.

We self-manage our five-unit property with both—while RentRedi's reports can be clunky, Stessa offers much better reporting.

With FHA, you have to live in one of the units.

Then sell the property and start doing fix and flip or fix and rent. ( I prefer to sell this property as it 100km away from my student rentals. ) Not sure if I should renovate the lower unit to sell.

If you are attempting to use income for the non-conforming unit, they will need to verify that it can legally be used as a rental unit.

If you cannot get Joe McCall to refund your money and/or convince your parents to assist you in RE, then maybe you need to further your skill set.