.\- FINANCING STRATEGY: list price is $90k, I will be opening up a HELOC on primary residence to get the $18k for the down payment and then hopefully a traditional mortgage for the other 80%

Interest rates are really low so I'd recommend a traditional loan (set it up as a refinance from your parents loan). 

Even if post-purchase upgrades could be verified and documented in a cloud platform then the time is not far away we could get “close”— definitely closer than the current people and process producing appraisals today are able to provide.

People will still need places to live, but the crowds of the traditional spring market will only be a fraction of what we have normally seen in the last few years.Of course every market is different, but I'd assume being in a state with almost 5000 COVID-19 cases would mean that you're probably going to see a significant decline in real estate foot traffic for the time being.

I'm wondering if its finally time for the shift away from the traditional Real Estate Agent?  

For investment properties your loan will generally be a point higher than current traditional mortgage rates.

For me personally, I want to continue to grow my traditional retirement accounts along with real estate so I wouldn't do it. 

Building the traditional storage space might be a bit more costly than you'd like, but a large barn like building that can be partitioned off might make sense.

Even in a good market, refi's are notorious to be very conservative on appraised values, and you may not have enough upside in many deals to fully take out the HML with traditional financing. 

“A lot of people don’t want others coming through [their homes],” said Sally Suslak, who owns Traditions Realty in Riverside.