More than anything I would like to develop lasting relationships with people who's goals align with mine.

All the property management that I dealt with had the rental income deposited into their account not mine.

A buddy of mine who flips houses down in Florida is looking to expand his business up here after having success with a property that kind of fell into his lap a few months ago.

You must know landlords who have faced situations similar to mine.

A friend of mine told me that once I use a different type of loan, I won't be able to use the VA loan anymore, pretty much lose my benefits. 

Another option is to try to establish a fair value for the building and just present him a written offer for it - a friend of mine did this to a landlord a few years ago after always having back and forth verbal discussions that never really went anywhere.

We had met on BP in 2015 as he attended my meetup group and over the years he was very involved with the community here in Chicago and had worked with a few contacts of mine.   

One of mines is built in 1984.

A friend of mine was doing it and it interested me so he taught me how to find and analyze deals and I’ve been hooked ever since!

Quality of service and pricing definitely do not correlate, as many of the higher-priced custodians have some of the least responsive customer support.With checkbook plans, the role of the custodian is minimized and you may find a very low flat-fee for the custodial administrative services- usually not on the custodian's web site, but by private arrangement with the advisory firms like mine that offer the legal and consulting side of the service.