While rates were near all time lows, we bought a home that we could reside in and rent out the backyard detached living garage space.

Sorry for the late reply; I'm not on BP too often. 

As a custom builder for decades, I dealt with this way more than once, especially with new subs that had not worked for me before.Back in the old days we used to just go with a verbal ok, but in the last 20 years or so, it is imperative to have a written CO (even an email sent from the jobsite) from the Sub and then I would add 20-25% and submit a CO of my own to the customer.

Utilizing the years of experience from the people on the forums will allow me to talk intelligently with a realtor, the property manager, the seller, and so forth.  

To figure out the land value , the county assessor’s website should have a breakdown of the assessed value for both the land and the building.

The Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) is refundable during the Due Diligence (inspection) period, and goes hard at the expiration of the DD period.

For context, I have a Carrot site and can follow instructions, but am a total novice when it comes to websites, and no nothing about code.Thank you in advance to anyone that took time to read my post and provide advice/feedback.

I already owned a home not on the water.

If you are doing the work and labor it reduces some of the risk but to me we won’t let at that high a ltv

You can refer out the deals that you don't buy and collect a commission.