Review the guidelines from the IRS and local admin agencies regarding how they review independent contractors and try to meet most of those guidelines.

3) I do plan on doing more research on an area beforehand, finding the "good"/upcoming parts of town, researching a fair value or a "deal" potential of a property and then spending about two weeks or so in the area to inspect properties and make offers... is this feasible for someone to do on their own or would I be better off working with some investment agency instead?

Even if she is a licensed broker, I would consider this limited agency because she is related to the seller and would look out for his interests more than yours. 

You may want to try the route of reporting these people to the agencies that regulate them first, or sending a strongly worded letter by certified mail with return receipt requested giving a deadline to respond to you before commencing legal action.

I currently operate a digital marketing agency in Los Angeles and am interested in real estate investment as a new, long term revenue stream.

Also, signing a buyer agency agreement with her goes a long way to show you are serious. 

I like your methodical approach - it reminds me of when I interviewed adoption agencies when we were adopting our son!

In light of the fact that evictions are not reported to credit reporting agencies unless the judgement is turned over to a collection agency and therefore a report like this would not catch most evictions is this really value added for the purpose of identifying evictions? 

Likely the owner's relative is confused and it is not Social Security but the state government agency that is responsible for implementing Medicaid. 

Or another agency