The vent on the wall is simply to get some of the heat (and smoke) out; it's not required but that closet may get hot and damaged clothes (or not...).   

Thank God my mentor isnt one of those.

I personally have never rented from friends simply because I didn't want to be put in a bad situation where I had to evict them. 

They will not work with you on this, they will simply try to offer a different cabin in their program to the affected guests.The one thing we learned after the fact - is if you follow VRBO's process on this - which you will have to talk to them - you can have all of their reviews moved to your listing.  

They simply don't have time to invest in these smaller deals because their main source of income requires too much time from them. 

Im hoping the RE gods will smile upon me this year too.

Luckily my wife trusted me (and God's guiding of me) enough to allow me to pursue something risky like REI.

Thank God for this group. 

Is it simply because the market for these types of loans are so much smaller?

I've learned to say no to people who just simply have enough money to move in, and to dig in deeper into their income, rental history, employment feedback, etc.