Any feedback is welcome and apologies for such a long initial post!

My idea is this: I lease it from him with the ability to sublet and I only pay him a percentage of my proceeds when the place is rented and only after my initial costs are recouped.

Currently I have no initial start up money.

In our initial conversation he passionately wanted to sell and said to make him an offer and that he had turned down a previous offer for $35K from an interested rehabber.

Well initially I have always had an interest in the concept of owning real estate as an investment.

If no acceptable bids, there will be daily collection and review periods for the next 5 days until the 16th day when investors are allowed to bid.As I plan to live in the house for a few years while fixing it up and saving up the next downpayment, I placed a bid in the initial bid period for owner occupants.

Also if down the road you think it is not going so well consider after the initial lease put her on notice with a month to month agreement. 

I believe if I could get the initial capital to begin buying houses in this area alone, I could create an Empire Of Properties.

This is largely based on the idea that any mice, insects or whatever are attracted to something the tenant is doing (leaving out food or crumbs) and therefor after an initial period it’s their problem.

Where it does count as an inquiry and lowers your score by only 5 points or so is if you initiate a potential lender to check your score, e.g. you apply for any sort of loan.Technically those free sites can provide some value but only if you use it to see how you're doing relative to previous scorings from the same site.