There are environmental issues with dry cleaners but not so much Laundromats.

Cleveland doesn't have dry basements in any of these cash flow areas the out of state investors are buying houses in.

Insurance, tax, deep list of vendors, constant growth with partners who provide: HVAC, painting, dry wall, plumbing, roof, board up, locks, key keeping, just to name a few

In my experience it is definitely a job more than passive income (yes you can create owner finance notes for "cash flow" but you need to constantly be buying more as those dry up in 3-5 years typically), you need to constantly be sending direct mail campaigns, talking to buyers and sellers, posting property ads, etc.  

This question is not unlike many of those tweets you see on Twitter...they're fun to think about and interesting to read peoples' takes on this, but in reality, anyone with $5M in dry powder investing in only one asset class is not acting very prudently.

Sitzer / Burnett decision ink isn't dry yet, yes NAR will appeal, lots still happening but this is a big deal. 

Below is what my experience with wholesale purchases in the Chattanooga area has been.1- PSA- wholesalers have their own contracts, they're typically very short and cut and dried.2- Inspections- you do not have inspection contingencies on a wholesale contract. 

There are multiple material participation tests that you can use. (1) 500 hours - unlikely you’d hit this.(2) 100 hours and more time than any other single individual. (3) substantially all the activity is done by you (this is not as cut and dry but generally 70% of all time spent is a good starting point). 

You might consider actually filing your mortgage with a title company or something similar that would collect the payments and process them and then forward them to your parents for a small fee to keep everything cut and dried and have formal documentation.

They are simply trying to milk your credit card dry.