hi josh. i have thought at times about doing the vacation rental house thing myself. maybe some day i will do it. first and foremost, education is a great thing, but you can spend too much time on education and never spend anytime in the real world education center. my advice???

You need to spend a little for a proper education or to jumpstart that part of your education, for sure it will be more than $1,000 if you make a mistake on your offer.

I could not find much in the way of comps, so I made an educated guess.  

Like others have mentioned area is already attracting a bunch of companies from many different industry sectors.

I believe you are referring to Self Directed IRA's (SD IRA or SDIRA)....try to do a search on them on here or online and educate yourself on them.Other reading....http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/51/topics/63454-list-of-self-directed-ira-companieshttp://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/51/topics/64530-best-self-directed-ira-trust-companies-http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/51/topics/58063-who-is-your-self-directed-ira-custodian-of-choice-why-http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/3258-self-directed-retirement-plans

Education is key.http://get.biggerpockets.com/nomoneydown/http://www.biggerpockets.com/real-estate-investingA lot of people also talk about finding your why.

I was working abroad in the same sector before moving to the West Coast.

She is not motivated and you may not have the skills to educate her otherwise, even if you do, sounds like she's impressed with what she has, not a good situation to spend time with.

I have much lower insurance rates so I'm just looking to educate myself, fairly new to the area.

This slight loss in rental income is a small price to pay for the education you received in dealing with difficult people.