They're in a well established neighbourhood and the trees make it nice but we overlooked the cost of trimming them when buying the houses.

This this option special purpose LLC is established to be used as investment vehicle for the IRA.

Is this an acceptable and worthy way of getting funding for deals until relationships can be established with local money lenders outside of conventional banks?

I'm not gambling.

If they have a more established rental history, have been employed longer or their employment is stable, the more likely you can collect if something like this happens (and the more likely they are to pay/not damage items so as to avoid this altogether).

So, I thought I'd share with the group my current game plan on how to find either the established local superstar wholesaler--or, nearly as good in my mind--the superstar who has started his climb up the mountain (because I'll happily latch my wagon to his and we can both make money on the way up).  

I've been doing a lot of digging on this and from what I've found its pretty difficult to get conventional financing even with an established LCC with a good credit history.

You are correct to try and establish what those ACTUAL expenses will be, beforehand.What you can't exactly work out are your ONGOING expenses ie. cash flow.

I trusted the seller because he was sooo nice during this process and was a established investor, I figured he would know how to screen tenants properly so I just said a little prayer that he picked good people and everything would turn out ok...

If you have a good realtor representing you, they will likely perform a CMA to establish a sales price for the property you are selling.