They can see the value in older neighborhoods that are near their down towns that they inhabit.

So, the buyer is getting a house they can rehab at lower than the typical monthly rent for the area.Now, of course, these are typically not nice houses, but they are inhabitable, and the buyers are obviously those with poor credit otherwise they'd be buying with traditional mortgages.

I'm a civilian of 22 years and I'm betting they are stalling or trying to find a way not to loan me money because of pending furloughs.

There are 4 houses from the 1950's in terrible shape (inhabitable) and have been vacant for a couple of years.

The houses do not inhabitable but does need work.  

Cheap" but the crime is unpredictable.Unpredictable but it's there.I was postulating on how to make D-Town better...hence putting all of the remaining inhabited houses next to each other in the burnt out lots (like a monopoly board).Which in reality would mean building cheap new (burn proof) homes on the empty lots--and leaving the CHEAP brick fixers to be fixed up and flipped.But the problem is jobs--no jobs = no mortgages.So no one to flip to, other than Section-8 landlords.D-Town needs Good Paying Jobs...

On a multi-family where you are obviously not going to inhabit every unit I believe you will get a percentage of the expected rent.

Two Family up/down Multi located two blocks from Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg MA.Top floor: 4 bedrooms/2 bath.Bottom Floor: 3 bedrooms/2 bath.Cannot finance it without owner occupancy, so the plan is to inhabit the bottom unit and rent out the top unit.

Dylan,  I actualy looked at the house on lanning as well and the agent sais it has a 1 bed each duplex in the back that is in very bad shape but still inhabited.

I inhabit the top unit