Which is one of the reasons we do not participate in this program and also why voucher holders are often limited to finding only poor choices for rental properties.Gail

Many times, trying to educate yourself too much is a crutch and since you're never going to know everything, gives you a reason to delay making investments.  

Don't use our company's rates, they're not accurate for two reasons, one is just because this is LA, and second is, we are dealing with 200-500k constracts.

A good agent will ask for POF, require a reasonable inspection period, and protect the seller from unlicensed brokers.

The biggest reason that they will lend you the money is that they have known you for 10, 20 or 30 years and trust YOU.

This leads me to believe they may not have a month to month lease but an implicit tenancy at will agreement.While I intend to give them a reasonable amount of time to move, is a 30 day notice still necessary in this situation, or can I just choose a day by which they must vacate the property?  

This will give the seller reason to follow up, too, with some funds held up for this tenant.

I agree that finding a job, bird dogging, getting a license and leasing are all other pathways there and are more conservative - or tried and true - however I don't believe that it is a pie in the sky scenario.

Asking price: $245,000 - reasonable for the areaEstimated Monthly Rent under current leases: $2500.00 - on the low side of the range for the area but the tenant base is long term and stableAnnual Taxes: $5000Annual Insurance - Unknown/information requestedUtilities - Unknown/information requestedBuilding Owner pays for alarm monitoring,electric and water bills - have asked for monthly cost averages but do not have yet.Individual tenants pay their own internet and phoneDescription: 2400 sqft, brick building with a 10 space parking lot, good location Known upcoming repair is HVAC for the downstairs (est $5k), upstairs HVAC has already been replaced.Thank you for your time as well as your opinion on this deal, recommendations for additional questions, additional information etc. 

Secondly if he is not willing to at least tell you what his address is, which you already have, then there is no reasonable way for you to know which John he is, therefore you will not be able to remove him from your list.