You need to incentivize them to mentor you or partner with you, either you work pro bono for them or bring something to the table of value.To your comment about "shady" or dishonest, I would encourage to you be as honest and forthcoming as possible, I don't know about you but I got into real estate because I wanted to do something meaningful, profitable for my family's benefit, I wanted to benefit from my level of effort rather than giving it to someone else, and most of all I wanted to make the world a better place by improving whatever it is I am working on; I want to be able to lay my head on the pillow at night knowing I did everything I could today to move forward in a positive direction and did so with integrity in order to prevent any form of regret. 

All needed extensive renovations but did have some positive features such as newer roofs, furnaces, and solid structural integrity.

If you want to set yourself apart, be courteous and professional and respect their time.Their main concern would be people looking in medicine cabinets for drugs and in dressers for jewelry.

Property is already in closing at Integrity Title.

It might not be worth becoming a doctor if you now have $200k debt form med school and only plan to practice medicine for ~10 years before you want to transition to REI full time.

Me: I am a traditional Chinese Medicine doctor + clinic owner, surfer, world traveler, and mama (/servant) to an especially lovely Kelpie pup.

Having the whole thing vertically integrated is worth a lot... 

If you want to keep your investments in the Portland area I can recommend some people with high levels of integrity to connect with.  

Unless you have new, material information to substantiate lowering your offer than you did at the time you offered $350k, I believe you are compromising your integrity if you lower your offer.  

And I liked that you updated the home while keeping the integrity of the cool features like the fireplace.