A consumer tenant/buyer for more than 6-months is legal, but dangerous and highly discouraged because compliance is almost impossible and the statutory penalty prohibitive.Also, you will have difficulty evicting if the judge knows anything because you (landlord) must show superior right to possession. 

Once you get a contract signed and you have control to sale the property, do you already have a buyer in place? 

Not to get into too much detail, I had a transaction earlier this year where I represented the buy side, and that seller at the closing table had to write my buyer a check for $15k for not disclosing something that state law required them to. 

Feel free to ask me for referrals to lenders and a RE broker who will oversee your transaction/buyer's agent if you'd like good ones I've worked with in the past.

Can I still assign this home to a another buyer?

Some rentals will drag you down in ways that a tenant or buyer cannot perceive value, like plumbing electric, etc.

I would venture to guess most people at open houses are not actual buyers.

But frankly, buyers are human and not completely rational, so the best you can do is guess what someone else is going to be willing to pay and pad your numbers.

FEMA is reassinging maps now so people who may not have previously been required to buy flood insurance will now be required to pay their lender who will purchase coverage, even if they never intended to buy it themselves.The trickle down effect is that the pool of potential buyers who can afford or want to pay of for flood insurance may reduce the number of people you can attract when it's time to sell the flip.  

The market for SFHs is driven by home buyers not investors.