@Joe Fairless Sounds like your project is significantly larger and more ambitious than mine, but that probably correlates with your significantly larger experience level, so I wish you the best of luck!  

5.She is trying to get $50,000 total to try to fix up the reno project plus pay for the expensive repairs on the other properties.6.She would also like to refinance the other properties which may be under commercial loans but deeds are in trust.One is over 12% and others I believe are over 8%.7.Her personal property has a mortgage for $130,000 and is showing about that value on auditors website + corelogic/Zillow.However, they completed gutted and rehabbed their house many moons ago and turned it from a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom church house into 5/6 bedroom 4.5 bath house.I believe theres plenty of equity to be found here but she’s afraid if she gets an appraisal for HELOC either she will waste money and it will come out to what the internet says or the county will reappraise the house and raise her taxes significantly which she can’t afford right now.8.She has a promissory note from a lawyer my stepdad lent $50,000 to some time ago.The note was due for $83,000 balloon in 2011 but he has only paid $5,000 on it.I don’t know the full details of this but she is supposed to send me a copy.Thanks for any help...this is pretty complicated, especially since I don't have the paperword to really lay down the exact details. 

Homepath also has the "renovation" loan for I believe up to $30K in repair funds, and FHA has the 203k for significantly more in repair funds if you're interested in buying a fixer, but still with a low down-payment, and without coming out of pocket on the rehab costs, which can be very cash intensive. 

It all comes down to doing the math, market analysis for rents and sales prices, financing or ability to access existing equity, jobs now and future job growth for renters within easy commute distance, increasing infrastructure between Front Royal and NoVA/DC for speculative significant appreciation, your investment philosophy (buy/hold vs fix/flip, desired return on investment, etc).Best of luck and keep us here at BP informed of your decision and the results!

Working to expand significantly over the next couple months.

Of course, after you've done enough research and are comfortable with the process and the significant investment in time and money. 

If you have significant equity, there is no reason to discount anything. 

If your marketing dollars are slim & you're going to try & hustle to get someone to let you lock their house under contract at a significant discount, you're going to make 100 offers.

That shouldn't be a significant holdup.

I do like the  idea of using a  penalty for significant delays.