I have never pulled a permit for a water heater swap, know no one that has ever pulled a permit for a water heater swap, ever seen or heard about one getting red tagged for no permit, and have never had a plumber recommend getting a permit.

I recently spoke to a realtor in the poconos, in particular regarding Masthope and he said obtaining a str permit is very hard now, if not impossible.

You could force the seller to bring it up to code before the sale is complete as one of the contingencies of buying it, let them deal with it.

I gave Financial Freedom my credit card info so that they could bill me $3.95 to ship me a book.

If I had to leave a takeaway from this post before getting too far in it would be that whatever goals are had you have, we have these goals for a reason and typically it does not go exactly as planned but even if it doesn't go as planned, we can pick up where we left off and give it a fresh start.

Pull permits always . 

We want to get a Vacation Rental Permit for stays under 30 days for ADU but current zoning doesn't allow it.

Quote from @John Winters: Greetings BP ~I am hoping to receive some feedback on the financial feasibility of this plan and/or some tips to improve it. 

So, make sure YOU understand the copy & paste info below:Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

Given that the seller is financing the deal for the 2 years and then the plan is to re-finance it with a bank, I am having difficulty producing such financial analysis.