I'm interested in all points of view.

I try not to waste his time either by generally only viewing properties that I will likely offer on if things check out. 

This is more conservative than prevailing thought here on BP, which emphasizes short term cashflow gains, maxed leverage, and views equity as a bad thing.If you're determined to pay that house off rapidly, refinancing into a 30 year at a higher rate, and then making a bunch of extra payments, would be folly. 

Make sure to view the Bigger Pockets book store: https://www.biggerpockets.com/store

While many in the military community will talk about buying a house at every duty station and then retiring on the rental income after a full career, that takes a long point of view and a willingness to let the property sit with little impact to your bottom line for many years.

Get a independent appraiser over to view the property and give you a better idea of comps whiles it's still for sale.. once it gone you won't have the same chance.. what's other lakeshore homes in surrounding areas going for.. what makes a property like this valuable is the setting the view, sunsets, sunrises and quality of the lake, and lake size and what the lakeshore is like. sometimes the price is hard to justify but from the owners point of view he's got the best and maybe he's right you won't realize that until you research more or when it's gone and you have to start over..Good luck.

I just have hard time seeing 3-5K sitting in a bank savings account losing money YoY, but I guess anything outside of that like a CD either locks up the money, stocks, bonds, mutual funds have risk, and crowdfunding also.Thanks for the input, this is why I really like posting on BP, multiple views and things I might be overlooking.

Did you pull the credit scores for these applicants, talk to their previous landlord (not present) did you confirm their employment through viewing consecutive pay checks etc.

my jaded view!

The members (including myself) would like to take out a mortgage on the property (i.e 30 year since the interest rates are so low) to pay the money owed to me, but wasn't sure if this would even work (not sure how a mortgage company would view the promissory note).