They are going to charge you hourly but if the job isn’t too big and you provide the fixtures, you can get the work done quickly for not too much more.

So let them do what they can and charge them less for the part you help them with.

They allow you to provide them with custom field criteria (i.e absentee owners, 50%+ equity, owned for 5 years +, 2-4 units) then charge you a small price per contact.

They charge approximately 4.5% per purchase, which isn't huge, but isn't insignificant.

Here the only way to collect any fees in court is really charging them as rent. 

This also gives you the option to flip income to your wife at a later time if you want her to have higher income to qualify for a mortgage when you're tapped out (not tax savings but good to have the holding LLC).You can also have your tax bill charged to the holding LLC for a portion which is tax deductible while your 1040 tax prep fees are no longer deductible with tax reform. 

Wouldn't they just automatically charge their seller their 6% for both sides of the transaction since you don't have your own realtor? 

If I were to acquire the property, what would I have do to make this a legitimate (and safe) dwelling without putting myself at risk?

Since they have moved in we have been charging them $1500.00 per month. 

The reason for this is the lending laws to owner occupied borrowers are significantly different than lending to investors - examples foreclosure process, rates and fees that can be charged and no balloon payments.If you do fins someone to lend the money needed, I would highly recommend that you have a competent mortgage lender take a very close look at the deal so they can get you refinanced out of the private money once you have the rent revenue in place.