In Bay Area, those costs had easily recovered in couple month's appreciation.

Why not try for a much longer period, that way in case things change you can assign the option and lease to someone else and recover some money, and if for some unknown reason the property jumps in value you will also be in the position of making a few bucks. 

In a nutshell, we can assume they stand to recover $15k.  

I don't have enough for a down for investment right now either just recovered from a bad few years. 

So no one could be made accountable for the repairs/cleanup except myself.In the end, i had to spread the cost to everyone through rent increases to try to recover the damages over time, but it was a huge hit to the cashflow of the property.Good luck with your cleanup!

It is important to understand that while some states have expensive judicial process the overall cost of recovering from a default includes much more than just the cost to foreclose.  

So i get a text from my newer upper tenant, she explaines her daughter Flushed a "toy" down the toliet, and its plugged.....after replacing the toliet, and bringing the plugged one home, i got out the hose, and a fishtape and recovered a 4 yr olds hello kitty!

HOA's have a mechanism to recover HOA dues by foreclosing on a condo owner's unit.

Obviously he'd have to recover his credit, but I'd say the situation makes a pretty good lease-option tenant.

Now that the market has recovered they are valued at just over $90K.