I was afraid of "unloading on a newbie" and leery of the situation as well so you confirmed my initial worries.

Enough that I moved my initial search to obits instead of waiting for a probate to be opened and I suggest if this is one of the areas you work, you do the same.

If the difference between 15/30 year loans was 3.5% and 8% I can bet more might do a 15 year loan but a half percent is negligible when you can leverage that half percent elsewhere for way more ROI.

I assume a 10% fudge factor, usually plenty for unseen and the unexpected, while a few times that wasn't enough, more often it's within 2% of the initial guesstimate.

I haven't done much research on this but I bet its 2 fold.

Then I have had smaller apt buildings for example one I did 12 units bought at 184k sold 7 months later for 257k;) Brian B has a big business and certainly sounds like the most active guy I see in this forum I bet he could entertain us with some great deals he has done.

After speaking w/the homeowner today I think the town may be more willing to negotiate or work with them/me than I initially thought.

This was covered the other day:http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/83731I bet this guy's other tenants have all paid their March rent early and most have probably paid April.

I think you may need to adjust your verbiage on the initial communication if anyone thinks YOU are going to be the one living in the house.

Initially, a pre-approval will help, but it's not a commitment on the deal, for that it will need to be appraised and accepted prelim title, some lenders charge for a commitment credited to the loan origination, some don't credit back but may have a fee, so not taking the loan and going to a HML can be expensive.