I've heard stories from other landlords of people showing up at their house with a moving truck after paying deposit to a scammer.....or even in the house when they get there- scammer makes up story about lost keys and just tells them to get in any way they can.Lesson I learned: put my ads everywhere - I think they are way less likely to do this on a site that's already got the legit ad. 

2016- Pay off Truck (COMPLETED)2017- Max out ROTH IRA & build bank roll for first property/Reserves (ON TRACK)         - Attend first RE Meetup (COMPLETE)         - Make offer on a property (COMPLETE, but didn't get accepted)         - Read 2-3 RE books per month and listen to podcasts (ON TRACK).2018- Transition out of the Marine Corps         - Have at least $20K cash to purchase first property         - Transfer to Community College using GI BILL, get my 60 credits, apply to UCLA w/GI BILL.2019- Have my first property using the househacking method

It looks to be an alternative of a home warranty where service calls are included in the price, but they won't actually repair appliances.Is it worthwhile?

Alternately you would be entitled to a contractors fee to do the required work (pressure wash).

but also try smaller, local banks as they tend to be easier to work with.If you can't find a local, traditional lender, then try looking into alternative options.

You will be taking IRA distributions and paying regular income tax on the amount.What you will gain by using an IRA format is keeping the full amount of the current retirement plan available to invest.The alternative would be to take a distribution of the current 401k and pay the taxes on that money, then you would have what is left after taxes to invest.

Getting an attorney and pursuing someone after two years does not sound like a pleasant alternative.

I can think of a few alternatives that would take a couple of hours to write (including caveats and if/then scenarios). 

I searched for alternatives to CC but it mostly points to RentRedi, AppFolio, etc, other cloud based options that he doesn't need.

There is, however, a small minority of investors who make this work with alternative debt financing of course, and institutions do own about 2% of the SFR market.