A bad deal will dry you up slowly financially and mentally.

The important thing is ensuring you are capable (financially and mentally) of making the decision to alter the strategy amid changing conditions.Devise something that suits your personal investment objectives, risk profile, and lifestyle and along the timeframe that you need.

It sounds like the owner mentally shut down after a traumatic life experience and walked away without considering the options he had, and may still have.

In what business model does it make financial sense to accept the victim mentality?

If you don't someone else will, that is the mentality the banks have with these REOs. 

Even if you say the money was inherited and handed to them in a silver platter, someone some time ago had a process they fine tuned and worked to make it to that event.You need a process and you paid $7000 for what you thought would be an event that would grant you access into inevitable success, but the only thing you will get if they come through is an inside look at their process.As I see it you have two options:1) Bury your losses and stick with it and demand what they probably promised (an inside look at their process), then try that process and see i it will work for you2) Bury your losses and move on to find another process or create one yourselfNotice both options start with bury your losses.It will take every ounce of mental power to do this, but the lost $7000 should not be a factor in your decision.  

The mentality reminds me of how you have to be an "accredited" investor (basically filthy rich) to invest in things like an equity position in a start-up which could produce an enormous return especially if they went public although not likely (yes I know!). 

Have your 30 second "elevator speech" very well rehearsed, because if you interrupt my bourbon sippin' time by knocking on my door on a weekend, I better interested in the first 10 of those seconds .. or else that door is getting shut in a hurry.Sit down and write out every single question you think a homeowner might ask you, and have an answer.

I would mentally be prepared for this fee to be at very least 1% of the property value, but they could just let you back out.

That stress would then consume my mind and would make me not be mentally present during a meeting or a sale, etc.