Banks that advertise keeping your loan in house and not reselling it are ones that do not qualify to resell to fannie/freddie and therefore don't have to meet their seasoning requirements. 

I realize this is a question with a lot of variables, the reason for it is if a house is falling down and it costs too much to repair it than it's worth, why not make a stupid low offer for it, and in the chance the seller accepts it, take the house down and resell the lot.

Anyways, I am wondering if there are any online places where people can provide suggestions based on as-built and proposed plans which would get me the best value for my money and create a nice layout for rental, resell or personal use point of view.Thanks in advance for your response.

Try to resell to a cash investor/flipper that is looking for what you got. 

And their roommates covered the rent and then some.They want to renovate and sell the units as condos but because of housing laws in San Francisco due to lack of housing, they have to stay in the duplex for at least a year before they can renovate and resell the property.

3) if I did the work without permits will this come back to bite me when I try and resell the properties?

In either case, whether you decide to rent or to resell, first determine if the deceased owner had a will.   

It's been great hearing other stories from folks outside of real estate, and I find that many of their ideas are still relevant to me in my own entrepreneurial endeavors even though they're doing stuff I have no interest in like reselling on eBay or running online retail stores. 

We have real estate agents do this for us but our intent is to re-sell the properties.

@Lee Yang -- I wholesale properties but I actually buy the house and then re-sell it.