Questions about contacting a professor for getting PhD
This doesn't look very good. The guy is happy to take you on, but requires that you pay full tuition fees for your studies and is only willing to “explore options for securing funds” after you do so. This would be expected at undergrad level, but for a PhD it means either he is not very interested in you, or he doesn't have funding but is not willing to decline a potential student. In any case, it doesn't look good.