I hope that provides a clearer explanation as to why it may be difficult to try to make a park out there, but who knows as every city/county decision maker is different. 

Remember, our main goal is to get this under contract so we can make other buying and business decisions.1) We'll give him an 11% earnest money deposit.

Where nothing is ever their fault or from a bad decision they made. 

If option number 1, is not possible, interview Agents to aid in decision making.

They are making a conscious decision to not work with an agent.

Only problem with that and the VA is that it requires you to be owner occupier. best of luck out there with your decision. 

When it was time to trade up we decided that we would hold it and rent it for an investment.

A good jack of all trades will be worth his weight in gold as most specialty subs aren't interested in coming all the way out to replace a door knob and/or their hourly rate makes maintenance calls prohibitive.

Now if you think they are charging you for additional repairs incurred that were not expected then you need to make the decision on whether you are fine with losing the contractor over 200 bucks.

Even as a lender by trade licensed in CA, we've used the FHA loan to buy multi family homes and we keep that loan until we have 20% equity at what point we refinance into a conventional loan with no PMI.