Or you can visit the local jurisdiction's courthouse website or physically go to the courthouse to look up liens.

Of course physically segregating them is cleaner, but may be costly.  

I am actually not too far from where you live, so I assume you do not have a physical presence often in Memphis.

Ask to see his license numbers and his insurance documents and then call to verify they are real and in good standing.Assuming you don't fire him, ask him to describe his training and experience so far and check his references from past jobs completed.Then ask who exactly will be coming to your home for each job to be performed.Who will be physically doing the painting,flooring,etc.Before work commences,ask him to show you the invoices for all materials purchased with your money and then visually verify that all the materials arrived to the job site and are not sitting in his cousins garage waiting to be used on another persons job site at your expense( theft of materials is all to common).Don't let him buy 100 gallons of paint and then only use 65 gallons and keep the rest for himself,see if it can be returned for a refund.The same with laminate flooring,carpet,bricks,pipes,and other materials bought in bulk from wholesalers.At each step,bring in an expert to inspect the work completed to see if he screwed it up and it need to be redone at his expense,not yours!!!

As far as creating your SOP, remember that you have to get out in the field and physically view properties to truly learn about the local market and figure out what your niche will be.

Because of my current work situation I am never in any one physical location for more than 4-6 weeks.  

If I'm not making my normal rate, I might as well be looking for the next job that will pay me my normal rate.We don't typically arrive at working rates by looking at tea leaves.

As a minimum, you should use the market {physical} vacancy rate for the local area, though I would a larger allowance to be safe.  

That means your expenses could very well be out of whack when compared to professional operators. 

@Jeff Macdonald  .... two houses on one lot that are not physically connected are a challenge for conventional financing which i also found out the hard way.