The deal you describe gives me the picture of a desperate handyman.

@William Morgan  most parts of the country are not blessed with our state of the art title plants . they have no clue what the customer service part of a title co is or even exists.. jFor me I can call any of my title companies on the west coast and in 90 seconds get a verbal date down.. capturing all but the most obscure liens .. but enough to know if I want to persue it or not.and its FREE.those that have to work in like IL which is totally *** backwards  or states with closings attorneys this information is much tougher to get and NOT timely.. can take 3 to 5 days to get title back.We get a full prelim or title commitment same day.. but then again most of our title plants are in the  Philippines  we do not send in live person to pull records.. 

I have and upstairs and downstairs heatpump so I have  T stat for each one.I read a lot of reviews and customer feedback before deciding to buy this make/model.

But, just as important is knowing who your end customers are and knowing exactly what they want. 

Escrow people are a certain mindset with a very different set of requirements and I have seen revolving doors at companies that don't have every single aspect perfect for that person, and you cant keep everyone happy, all the time, so you will always struggle finding this perfect balance that will keep you (as the owner) , your customers, and your employees happy.Finding quality escrow people who are competent and give customer service is VERY hard, I have been on the recruiting end as well for over 5 years, but if you do find them, you will not be able to keep them with discounted escrow rates.

I'd do the home inspection first so you can get a really good picture of what really needs to be done, then contact the contractor to schedule a walk-thorough and estimate.

6) Assuming all goes well and I gain control of the property, since I have gone to the property, reviewed it and found out through talking to the tenant while taking pictures that this is not a owner occupied.  

I used the trial version of TrueRent and was going to stick with it, but they are not returning my emails with a question, so not sure about using them if customer service is lousy.

Chatting with their customer support gives you a better idea.

Huiping works for an "investor friendly" HUD Brokerage.As such, she can set up custom searches on MLS based on your criteria that can be delivered right to your in box, then if you see a property you love, she can also make an offer on it for you and then "work the deal" on your behalf.Further, she can add you to our HUD weekly update list, and you will receive a multi-county spreadsheet of every property HUD has listed.