I feel confident in our market cause our other 2 properties near there rent within a month.

Don't engage with him on the issue.

If you want to pay down your loan, increase the odds of a higher appraised value, and get MORE cash flow, then community engagement in required.Anyway, best to you.

There are a lot of games people play, but as long as you are confident in your numbers, you'll be okay.

Bigger Pockets has various resources: ebooks, blogs, forums, podcast, webinars, colleagues, keyword alerts, an awards system, a learn section, informative people in many fields of real estate, and more.We are considered to be the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with so connect with REIA meetings, accountability partners, and mastermind groups to engage with individuals interested in real estate investing.This large network has the answer you need; you may need to modify the question.

This instilled some confidence in the deal this far. 

I feel pretty confident with my decision here mainly in part because of everyone's advice and recommendations!

I have heard "yes" from one local landlord but I am still not confident if I would be allowed to or not. 

You will also need to take caution to avoid engaging in a prohibited transaction.This BP blog post discusses this type of IRA plan in details: http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/2810/blog_posts/28450-real-estate-ira

Zachary should get his broker's license if he is going to engage in brokering.