Thanks for any guidance that can be provided.

Ha, yeah that had always been my concern but some of the suggestions on here seem valid about strict rules and regulations on the leases, and I would be providing housing at 20% to 30% cheaper than anyone else could find of they wanted a studio to themselves.

The city posts the licenses to their portal immediately after the inspection, lead cert, and payment are all provided (again, through the portal).

So far I have just been stringing them along asking them to complete or provide documents for me (sellers property disclosure, listing agreement, survey, etc.) and then I pretend I never got them and ask for those same documents again and again and again until they get annoyed and stop replying.

Please provide insight as I'm not too familiar w area.

I can/could easily make that off a new spec house and more.

Smart buyers understand the value of a Buyer's agent and it certainly is not just to open doors.  95% of my clients are out of state investors purchasing in a market that they do not know nor live in, they count on me to walk the property, access repairs, provide comps and short term rental numbers, arrange and be present for inspections, as well as my ability to assist them getting their short term rental set up for them long distance.  

I'm finding our market is going through kind of a strange shift right now where construction costs can easily outpace RE values depending on the type of property.

You can just approach the seller (or their agent) as a private party and make an offer, either 3% lower or whatever you think will make the deal work for both parties.....Now if you want to acquire some RE knowledge, I suppose it couldn't hurt to have a license....and it will give you a small amount of credibility (not much, it is not hard to get a license)I think you can gain the knowledge just as easily by just starting to buy and sell properties...... 

You can easily get audited and caught for mortgage fraud for putting in a 12 month lease.