While the support sounds nice, I can buy quite a bit of consultation and legal help for $60K, and that doesn't even figure the royalty.Nothing against the franchises, I spoke with PMI and was impressed with their business model, I just don't like the idea of paying fees to be restricted operationally. 

Or is this just to learn about the property itself?

Are you listing in just AirBnB or VRBO or both? 

It was just a hard “pass” for them. 

But clearly the owner just doesn't care because nothing has been done about it for a very long time, I really don't understand why.

All just thoughts that came to mind.

When I did my early high level due diligence it looked to me like they weren't issuing any new permits, but I would love to be wrong on that.I do know, having just stayed there in an airbnb, that even for existing permits the rules are extremely strict. 

I would just like to scale up and the capital that I have isn’t enough to move as quickly as I’d like to acquire properties, so looking for other options.

That's what peaked my interest, but after researching them more, the cost is going to be over $40k just to learn how to do it through their company.  

I just don't know where to find deep pocket investors that would be interested in this type of arrangement.