How to estimate repair costs when property is inaccessible?

[Anxhela Musta]

Hello!

First of all I’m completely new to real estate so I would say I don’t know much about it.

So I found a foreclosed duplex in a neighborhood I like. My husband and I would live in it for 6 months only because it's convenient for me to go to work at my seasonal shore job, so we're not doing an FHA. We are looking into hard/private money lenders. The property looks not great from the outside, so we know it will need work and money to get it into move-in ready conditions. We are looking to wrap up the repair cost in the loan obviously.

Property has 2x 2 bed-1bath units. We will live in one and rent the other one. It’s a shore town so possibly we will also AirBnB one of the bedrooms in the unit that we’ll occupy.

My problem now is that the agent that is dealing with it told me that we cannot go inside the property. How can I buy the place ‘sight-unseen’? Does this mean it’s in horrible condition inside? How am I supposed to estimate repair costs in order to present it to a lender? Or even possibly make an offer?