So debt payoff is essential. 

@Jennifer White there are 1,000,000,000 things I wish I knew then but if I had to boil it down it would be these two:1) Understanding how banks underwrite loans.This is essential to scalability if you're looking to do it correctly from the start.

Here in the SF Bay Area, FHA loans came close to essentially not existing.You navigated all that, and 2 days from closing found out that the seller is actually upside down, and they can't even sell their house at all. 

(Never dealt with a lender, always paid cash on my residential flips) ((No, the EMD is essentially just a good faith deposit that you will perform under contract.

Because instead of paying $20K for a new pool, you are paying $10K for essentially $20K project.But, as @Dana Whicker mentioned, it depends on the neighborhood and if that is "essential" or not.

This is typically done with what’s called a “quit claim deed”, essentially a transfer of ownership from one entity to another.

That's essentially exactly how most real estate firms operate with a team structure.

He would be the sole owner of the LLC, which then owns the property, essentially. 

Those numbers include maintenance and cap-ex but it seems to me that they’d be negligible the first few years of owning the property. 5 years down the road when I need to spend some money on repairs, the appraised value and rents of the property will be higher, essentially increasing rent/PP to above 1%. 

I doubt that you'll be taken seriously, but you can essentially continue to contact the seller until they block you I suppose.