Oddball deal... Need some input

[Andrew M.]

This will be my first big purchase and it's a bit quirky so I'd be interested to get some outside opinions.

The properties I will be purchasing are 3 semi connected row houses which I will be managing for cashflow. My plan is to hold until the medium term and possibly eventaully sell for a good bit more than I paid for them ( the 30k price is a pretty steep discount. My partner is a full time wholesaler says he thinks they could sell for 20 a piece rented out.)

The deal is 3 row houses for 30k total. The houses are located in a lowerclass neighborhood in pittsburgh. If you know anything about the Pittsburgh market, wholesale properties in crappy areas for 10k is not unusual. The three units are separately deeded and are all currently rented out. One is section 8. Current combined monthly income is $1450 which puts yearly gross at 17400. Combined taxes are in the neighborhood of 1800 for the year, very low. Units are in decent condition, one has been cheaply rehabbed the other two are extremely outdated. From an income and cashflow perspective it looks very solid

Here's what make me nervous. The three properties are all part of one line of row houses. Two of the units are connected and then there is an abandned unit and then next to that is my unit. The setup is like this

U A U U.

The U'S are the units I'm purchasing, the a is the abandoned unit. The front porch roof of the abandoned unit which is connected to the porch roof of both of my units is starting to sag. The place is getting worse and worse over time and eventually could cause structural issues to the units I'm looking to purchase. I'm willing to spend money fixing the portion of the porch roof which is not mine but I will only be able to do so much.

My though is that as long as I get my properties highly insured this should not be an issue. This is also the way the guy who is selling it to me had it setup. I'll do as much as I can to have a contractor structurally brace everything and then insure the properties at 50k each.

Am I fooling myself into thinking this can be safely done through insurance or am I setting myself up to get screwed?