I am a plumbing contractor and actually advertise that we deal with odors that are difficult to find.

I'm actually in town until Thursday.At the very least, attend the Red Stick REIA meetup tomorrow night and see if you can find someone there with some experience who would be willing to help.

In 2007, we saw horror stories of people who faithfully made their mortgage payments only to get foreclosed on later because they didn't actually own the house and the person they were making payments to wasn't paying the bank.

I’m fairly confident in the actual renovation process due to my experience with facility management and vendor relations in the restaurant industry. 

You may find it difficult to obtain financing from private lenders due to the fact when utilizing SubTo, you don't actually hold title to the asset.

Would a cease and desist letter be the first warning for an STR if the city actually tried enforcing it?

Depending on your specific goals and why you are investing some of the out of state markets can provide more headache than the cash flow is actually worth. 

If that doesn't correct the issue I guess you can tell them you will send it back.

If I had to guess, I would expect D neighborhoods at best.

When I started selling my project in Canby we would have never guessed where pricing went to.. some of my clients in phase one have seen 200k appreciation in 2.5 years. and prices are holding firm ..