@Nathan Gesner   Many of these just cause laws hold landlords to a more difficult standard then the government holds itself to. 

Model Accountability and Integrity Lead by Example: They hold themselves accountable, demonstrating responsibility and integrity, which sets the standard for the rest of the team.

@Steve Babiak Can the title company typically run that as an added service to the standard title search?

I believe most house insurance policies have a standard minimum anyway, typically $300k is the standard that comes with a fire insurance policy. 

(if I made $200k I would be taxes on 80k after taking the standard deduction and child tax credits, etc. 

Qualified mortgages (VA, FHA, conventional etc.) get underwritten to Fannie/Freddie/Ginnie standards and get sold on the secondary market as securities.  

With this being a buy and hold I am tempted to go in and do the full gut and fix everything up to current standards even though it's not required.

I have a friend who works for a well-renowned construction company in our town who has offered to be our general contractor at a discount (only charging us 8% vs. the standard 15%) and "teach me the ropes"/make the right introductions so that I can repeat this on my own in the future. 

If you where going to be able to recreate the orginal layout, you would of been able to do so by the clues left behind by remaining framing, be it the "honey" holes where the toliets once where, the sizes of the holes in the joist would indicate what pipes ran where be it hot and cold supply, toliets, showers and other industry standard tell tale clues. 

@Stepan Fedetskiy section 8 can be good option if you have a good PM who maintains the property in good shape all the time as per the needed standards. best part is govt pays a portion of the rents so you dont have to chase tenants, downside the upkeep of the unit will eat up appx 20%. so its little tricky..sounds good on paper but when you go through one you will get an idea. i had 4-5 section 8's , 3 of them had no issues, but 1 of them had lot of issues and ate up all the profits.