Welcome to BP and thanks for sharing your plans, there are a lot of people in a similar position who will feel inspired.

Attend meetups and meet as many people in RE as you can.

People need homes.

Sometimes, the most honest answers come from people who have no stake in whether you buy the property or not.Good luck!

You can either cancel and they may reduce the fee to try to save the deal or take the hit and leave a foul review so people know of this bad practice 

The problem with rent by the room is you end up becoming a counselor or a people manager.

Staffing key people already there, front desk person, accounting person, all the third party vendors you need, all the training you need for your agents.All you do is recruit and sell. 

I've heard too many horror stories about people that pay cash for a property because they think they are getting a deal.A moron of an owner could see they could get a much higher price if they just put in the exit signs (etc) and then sold to someone with a bank loan. 

Do you like to do business with people trying to do a workaround?

I cannot speculate about other people's reasonings.