So you are gonna sue and spend thousands to collect maybe a few hundred in penalties?

Size makes a big difference in cost.

For example if someone has owned a house for 5 years, but did NOT refinance in 2020/2021, they left thousands of dollars per year on the kitchen table, which most people will not voluntarily do if they have another choice.

The idea behind this is it avoids having to get qualified by a bank and closing costs.

I have been having some success negotiating seller paid closing costs to help with rate buy down as well. - If you see a property that makes sense, I encourage you to get an offer in ASAP.

New construction may be an option, many builders are offering rate buy downs and closing cost assistance and then you get quicker appreciation when they continue to build out the community.

As long as you have proof of mailing you're okay on the time (not when she receives)  If you end up spending less to clean then you may have to refund some of the cost. 

Your costs are fixed and so you probably can't provide discount financing. 

After analyzing the deal further, estimating holding costs, realtor fees, monthly costs on hard money, estimating the worst case scenario of it taking three months to sell (average time here is 43 days), rehab costs, insurance, etc., I am pretty sure we need to pull out. 

There are also additional costs of operating and maintaining an LLC, like separate bank accounts, annual report filings, tax filings, etc.2.