Right around when you can't get residential loans anyways and have to go commercial is as good a time as any to LLC up, which "the system" already knows, hence it being the natural progression already built into the financing you can get (some commercial lenders REQUIRE an LLC).For details, check out one of the previous threads. 

Using a quasi-natural experiment in which investors purchased pre-packaged home portfolios, we find that average properties located within 0.25 miles of bulk-sold properties sell for $3,323.25 higher than homes located farther away.

You also need to be aware that custodians are passive in nature and simply process transactions at your direction.

My initial thought was to try to get lift from the PPC game until the SEO process matured in 8 or so months, then becoming a more natural process.

We are naturally a bit skeptical but I wanted to know are they any questions we are allowed to ask seller in order to gain information before we make an offer? 

The second part of his reasoning was that since it is technically classified as an "investment property", the rate will naturally be higher than if I were buying a house as a primary residence (this I can understand).

Due to the nature of the situation, I highly recommend you speak to a RE attorney and tax professional about all options available to you and the estate.

In retrospect i would have loved to start out of state with the opportunities i am seeing and what i know now.I naturally built connections starting with my first realtor, who introduced me to my lender, who introduced me to my inspector, who introduced me to my contractor and going down the line. 

If you have a lot of natural light go dark if you don't go light. 

If I were you I would cancel the annual insurance and have enough saved in your emergency fund to take care of flooding in case you own the property when nature decides to flood that high.