Can anyone venture an educated guess on whether I'll be responsible for the interest for the time that he owned the property?

The bigger challenge (in my opinion) is how you present the deals to those cash-buyers.

If this is your first rehab it may be enough of a return on your money to have gotten the education and experience of a successful flip! 

The few REI meetings I have attended so far have either been no-shows or asking for$10K to $20K for have access to education materials or mentoring.

At the very least, treat this experience as educational.

An appraisal is an "opinion" of the value on that day.

These all outweigh it in my opinion.  

Educate yourself while you finish school and go buy some stuff when you’re done

In your opinion, what could Lansing groups do to improve?

They are calling blockchain the "2nd internet" and in my opinion everyone should expose themselves to cryptocurrencies At least with what they can comfortably afford to looseCheck out an article I just wrote on Crypto and accepting a down payment in Crypto on a property I sold - https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/sold-prop...Also, here is another article I wrote on Blockchain - https://www.inman.com/2018/05/01/why-you-need-to-j...Much success