Foreclosure property questions

[Joe Farrance]

Hello 

Today I looked at my very first foreclosure property and to my surprise it was worse than I expected. The roof structure was caving in, the dormer was not put in right and showed signs of leaking, floors where very oft needing a complete replacement, furnace and water heater was under water and now needs to be replaced, the downstairs basement had signs of mold.

The positive side of things was the lot, the lot was very large.

So my question to the community is

(1) Is this normal in foreclosure property?

(2) With something like this would it be cheaper to knock the structure down and start from scratch?