@Nich J. there are probably 20-30 different insurance carriers who can provide you a solution, most of these companies are accessed through an independnat insurance broker.From your agents response, sounds like you are working with a personal lines agent. 

There arent really any made for you solutions out there like the gurus promise.

I don't know if Zillow is highly reliable or not, which I guess is another question.

There's a major dearth of qualified (or even reliable) candidates available for anything in the way of a part-time property management position (i.e. free unit and maybe small salary for on-call and other duties), but we hope that will change when the business grows to the point where we have more capital to offer a more qualified person.

Is it an option to strike a deal with the seller and write a contract stating I'm going to fix the house in order to get a conventional loan, but if the seller changes her mind selling the house she will be reliable for these expenses? 

But my question is that we are concerned this will seriously detract from potential renters and I was looking to see if anyone had dealt with something similar or had any creative solutions to the problem.

One was the "cost approach (if developed)" for $205,418 and the other was the "Sales comparison approach" for $196,000which the appraiser says in the report is the most reliable.

This investor is a really valuable person to maintain a relationship with in the future of you start to take down more projects or bigger projects.Don't focus on the problem, use some of the solutions pointed out, sliding profit split, carve in Property management fee for yourself, something.

If you don't think you will qualify now or it will be a stretch at best spending all of your money and or taking out more debt is not the solution.

Looking for a reliable handy man for a rental property in JC/JSQ area.