Do you have any experience with renters? It's hit or miss, but the two basic types of people out there renting are the short time renters who are looking to buy and need a place to live. They are the best, but they don't last very long. The other type are the ones who destroy the place. There is always the exception, and there are no absolutes, but overall, with a lifetime of working on rental properties, I stand by my views.
If your goal is to rent it out, remodel/rebuild accordingly. They will not pick up a wet towel, they will not tell you about a leak until something falls or rots apart. They may not take out the garbage for months at a time, and allot of them will sneak a dog or cat into the house regardless of the rules. Half of those will just let the turds sit on the floor. I've seen rooms that were just for the dogs to go pee and crap.
Age and family status doesn't matter. You will be shocked and ashamed for how some people live. I make a bunch of money cleaning out rental properties when they move out. Most of the time, they leave the day before they are evicted and on top of their mess, they vandalize the place. Food smeared over the walls, doors kicked in, faucets broken off and rocks poured down all the drains. I can go on and on, but for allot of rental property owners, they pay me more money to clean up and fix those homes then they make in several years of renting them.
I would never buy and own rental homes. The heartache isn't worth the potential return. I would and have bought them to fix up and sell to others who think they can make money at it. Some do, but it takes a certain type of person to do this. The ones who make money at it are very militant, or slum lords. The others are more like my parents and their friends. They spend their weekends fixing those properties themselves to make enough to pay the mortgage on the place and hopefully turn a small profit. Many years, that never happened. Fortunately for my parents, the housing bubble in California took off and they sold their homes for a good profit. For many years, they wanted to sell, but knew they could barely break even on them and with all the effort that they had invested into them, they held on for the hope that one day they would be worth something.
If it was me and the land was a good deal, I'd either let it rot and hold onto the land with the hope that in time, it will be worth selling as is. Or maybe digging a big hole next to it and pushing it into the hole and reclassifying the land for tax purposes as something else.
Good luck, it sounds like you're doing your homework.
Eddie
