Both my accountant and attorney recommend separate LLCs for each, especially if I decide to use the single-family as a short-term rental.4.

If short I will call the listing agent while looking at  crimereports.com, zip code demographics, income. 

They are very helpful for discovering what your offer strategy should be.

You might be able to ask the closing agent why it was not discovered by them, but then again what would it cost to recove the funds from them if they were liable.

Check for restrictions for short term rentals. 

It's led me to discover home monitoring systems like Eyedro (for electricity) and Flo (for water), where apparently you can track usage and figure out the consumption for a separate unit like a mother-in-law suite.

yep that is another difference (not the difference) which is why I said it was good for short term i.e. flipping vs long term buy and hold.

That would save me money in the short-term but it wouldn't give me anything in the long term. 

What are your short term goals in real estate?

I'd be very confident offering lower than you normally would on these because of that risk added to the fact that materials for repairs will be more expensive in the short term due to lack of supply.Please keep us posted on what you learn and how this works out!