It makes sense to me, they want to verify the biz income. 

Painting and flooring for 1300 sqft takes time, and while I don't want to pay contractor rates to save myself some of that time, paying much less makes sense for me.

Having him fund the down payment and maybe some rehab and then leveraging the rest of the property on a mortgage would make much more sense in my opinion.

I'm looking in the KCMO market and used the average property tax rate of 1.38% in jackson county as my number for taxes(not sure if this makes sense). 

Putting Subject To's into a Trust doesn't make sense to me for a couple of reasons.

I’ve been told to ignore the 1% rule, but I’m sticking with it because it makes zero sense  to me to buy something that a) won’t cash flow well and b) is 30 years old and requires conservative repair and capex estimates.

I need to start looking at properties that will qualify for the lower rates...it doesn't make sense to invest directly otherwise.

Yes, financially many times it makes sense to buy and move into a new primary as rates and terms are better. 

Like the old adage "what we lose in profit, we'll make up in volume" makes no practical sense. 

When rents come in, should we have them come into an LLC to divide equally at that point or does it just make sense to bring them in personally and just pay out the partners?