Old houses have cast iron pipers that will disintegrate (because of age and/or foundation shift).

The red stain is probably iron from the water.

Guess that seems ironic since I work for the power company right 😂.

@Mitch Messer it's ironic you should mention that.

As I iron out some of these details I will let you know where things end up.

Do you have any idea of the pain the owner feels when they see broken tiles because the tenant's kid had an oopsie dropping a heavy cast-iron pan?

I'd advise sitting down and really ironing out what are your bottom dollar needs to simply live as frugal as necessary, should you have to rely on the cash flow at some point. 

Additionally it is very common for electrical needing to be upgraded from knob and tube or plumbing being cast iron that is splitting or steel pipes that need replacement.

Ironically, this town removed their last remaining pay phone a decade ago...Is this also normal in anyone's experience??

All the other ideas and strategies are just at a bigger scale, the jump from SF to Apartments is more about capital then anything else for most people and comfort level, ironically enough the same reasons people don't get into RE investing to begin with just at a different scale.