The way I see it is if you can get the house for a price that enables you to fix the foundation then its not so bad.In my case I'm looking to buy, fix up, and hold for the time being, this might be different for you if you're trying to wholesale.This is my first property, but I'm confident in inspectors and my contract to get me out if it turns out to be worse than I thought.

Most people are going to be using Schedule E as they don't provide substantial services.Also if you are staying at your property to enable you to work on the property, these days don't count as personal use.

Would they take it off your hands at a price that would enable you to come out whole?

I love to say I am an investor, which I am (stocks, precious metals, real estate), but the reality now is that my wife and I also hold high paying jobs at $120K-$130K each, which enable me to purchase these good deals, but prevent me from doing the work myself and obtain "the best deals".

Just has tracking enabled for reasons like this.

We have a corporate business continuity plan in place that will enable us to maintain business as usual, including operations, accounting, etc. 

Documented repeatable processes enable us to reduce errors and inefficiencies.

Owning properties is very much a people business at the end of the day opening up lines of communication with tenants may enable you to be able to negotiate with them a bit if times get tough or they may even give you a heads up that they're about to take a financial hit because of all thats going on so that you can create a contingency plan. 

It sounds like the mother was, unfortunately, enabling the family and the rest of the family can't keep things together.

A totally virtual environment and cloud company enables that.