Upon default, our deed of trust specifically allows us to require the borrower to prepay into an account to cover insurance, taxes, or any other unpaid obligations.

But they as the bank are not going to require 100 pages of paperwork.

I will start researching and talking to some lenders to see what their requirements are!

These require lower cash invested and you might be able to access lower interest rates that way, so short-term value fluctuations won't matter so much. 

It appears they restructured to actually do more flips my buddy has a decent social media presence and is boasting about his last two flips and the profits are about half of this one and required 1 million in capital.

@David Friedman there are generally a few brokerages in each market that heavily deal in the restaurant space, it would likely be good to get on their radar, and to @Evan Polaski 's point, having your data/features on hand to "pitch" the site is likely a good call.Other items to note would be just to understand if the current configurations of the retail spaces could be reconfigured for a restaurant, things like grease traps, larger water lines, patio requirements may all be things they are looking for.  

If I'm required to do that (which I think I may be) I'm going to have to pay $800 state franchise tax every year, for each LLC.

I assume this is now a default that Airbnb has set that requires you to have a license, or you are automatically defaulted to 30-day stays. 

I'm licensed in 20+ states, and none of the ones I'm licensed in require the disclosure of insurance claims that are not flood insurance related.

That will be a requirement to buy as a primary unless you are getting a relocation done with your current employer or finding a new job, if not able to work remotely.