I know I'll encounter this situation in my career, and having the proper tools to create options for sellers will greatly increase my ability to do business.

He will see the 10% bonus of profits as a nice carrot and nothing more - he will see his ability to bill you for an unlimited bucket of unaudited hours as his primary means of extracting money from you.As an added bonus, he will have the opportunity to buy materials that you may or may not understand, directly from your pocket, with the repercussions from overspending being a [perhaps distant] future problem to worry about.

This may give you the ability to have a SFH styled house, but with better margins.Also, I am not really sure how accurate zillow is.

I think flipping, specifically, might end up being a great vehicle for utilizing my abilities and making up the years I've lost since 2006.

It is equally important, when interacting with people, that you have the ability, to sort through those that blow smoke from those that are credible. 

either paid (costly) or organically (seo, free_)5.  

Decide which of those researched intersect best with your skills, experience, abilities and likes4.

The ability to recognize and utilize creativity in one another to the fullest extent.

Yes, they have the right to demand an inspection.Your ability to pull permits and do the work yourself may be limited by your use of the property.  

Have you thought about building your online presence with seo and targeted keywords?