I called city hall and after getting the run around from 20 people I was directed to code enforcement. 

I just received my Real Estate Salesman License and want to cost out marketing materials and hit the road running.

Keep mind the rental will have several tax advantages.As for property management being done by family...you know them better than we do, but in general it is good advice to run your investing like a business.  

I'm always last priority or maybe they are running out of money, but for whatever reason, their communication, organization, and follow through are the worst I have ever experienced in business.

I'm also in Bettendorf and run an accounting firm that specializes in Real Estate consulting and compliance and also a property management company that specializes in single family and small multi-family properties.

It will be very helpful if anybody who owns/runs/invests in parking lots provide some guidance on how to go about it/pitfalls/problems in this area of investment.

I run a small business with my spouse and we've had bad luck with our accountants so far.

When you run numbers on the portfolio of CDs offered by most places, you find that after 12 months the early payoff penalty on their 5 or 7 year CD about breaks even on the higher interest you get, compared to doing 12 month CDs over and over again.So if you're relatively certain you won't need a chunk of change for at least 12 months, after running your own numbers to confirm, throw it in a 5 or 7 year CD so at least you're hopefully matching inflation. 

Plus you can listen to podcasts anywhere, whether you're driving to work, running, working in the garden, walking down the street, etc. 

But I now realize that the text in your post fully describes the way I feel about some people running the regulatory institutions, including the top dogs in Washington.