Fix it up to Rent until you Sell you Home and move into your Rental. 

My thought was that we would ask for the money for down payment in the form of a “gift”, and then do all of the work of finding and purchasing the right property, budgeting and managing all of the renovations (and doing most of the labor ourselves), and selling in the span of 4-6 months. 

I would like to have a good idea of the value of the mobile homes should I desire at some point to sell them off individually and then sell the land. 

After the sell of my house I'd want to purchase the farm, I could use the equity remaining in the hose to cover closing cost of the farm. 

And if you buy more than you sell you will be adding additional depreciable basis. 

A good option might be single family properties in Saginaw - they pay their own utilities and maintain their own lawns/snow removal, so it saves you time and money, and they're easier to sell if the need arises.  

Will your identified markets be an easy or difficult area to sell once it’s time?

Maybe better off just selling and re-investing in a different property.

I have a client interested in purchasing a property, using hard money to also cover rehab cost, and then has a theory to appraise it and sell it to themselves in another LLC so they could pull a lump some without losing real possession of the property.

IMO the money being made in STR arbitrage right now is by people who got in early and by people selling the "learn my 5 top ways to make money in real estate now with no money down!"