This option relies heavily on a great tenant screening process (but that's never bulletproof).Does anyone know of any Escrow Accounts that can be setup for free anywhere, even online?

They tend to rely heavily on their tenant rep broker. 

Essentially, lenders do not want their loans to be classified as Residential Mortgage Loans, which are heavily regulated by laws such as Dodd Frank.

We desperately need to quickly and heavily invest in more conservation and recycling, as well as bringing additional water into the southwest/AZ.

Since Lynnwood is pretty heavily dependent on Boeing Everett, my guess is that you might be early buying in the area.  

I agree that a lot of heavily educated individuals believe they're smarter than everybody, thus creating obstacles in buying real estate.

Recession is different thing.If you ask which business got impacted heavily by recession ?

Well..... you can follow the exact advice of your local RE attorney.... as much as it may suck...or you can listen to the belligerent RE agent on BP that is apparently an expert on "reading between the lines" on BP posts and thinks you are a slumlord.I'm going to listen  to the attorney.... but thats just me....go figure....listen to a local law expert or some BP "expert"Sounds like you have done your due diligences on trying to insure the issues are fixed, so make sure that is all heavily documented.

The lot (not sure if house is still there, its heavily wooded) has sat untouched for the last 20 years.

Just make sure your numbers work for you and heavily discount the owner's numbers if they are not backed up by records.