Hard money lenders will require you put down 20% of the purchase price + pay for the origination fee (2-4 points) and have 6-9 months in reserves (interest payments).By the way, if you don't have $60K in your bank account, don't despair.

Fast forward to 2015, I travel by the house all the time and each time I see it falling further into despair.

I have been considering going with Memphis Invest, a turnkey company, as I am beginning to despair of finding good property managers on my own.

I see it in my AZ renters and despairation in CA renters.

I understand your despair but perhaps you can consider finding some perspective. 

Maybe it's frothy tech, maybe stronger markets internationally to attract other international investors, there are marco-economic measures that trigger these things along with very emotional measures (exuberance/despair). 

@Stephanie PieriWent through a divorce and in despair learned about duplex living.

Do not despair tho, there's lots of folks on the forum that help people learn. 

Being a single parent especially without a support system and not just giving into despair is super human.

But decades of high unemployment from globalization and the attendant generational welfare dependence and despair have done a lot of trauma to places like ours.