If a business is up and running, and the owner (aka #1 employee) steps away, most will collapse.

I looked at the house today and I'm thinking it would be best as a teardown (collapsing floor in an addition, sloping floors on main and second floor, leaning chimney, etc.).

So holding long term money there where the buyers feel the government may collapse or be put into a tailspin with the economy they do not want to hold their money there.I personally think 2015 will be a record year for buying in the U.S.

I don't have a job, I have been self employed for 3.5 years, with the last 6 months being a total collapse of the cell phone market and my business in this area.

They do not prepare and expect big tickets repair, for example, after a few months collecting rent passively, the roof collapse, the boiler stop functioning and they do not have the money to repair it, so the tenant leaves and they are stuck with the fixed cost of holding properties and they just want out. 

Also its very rare a line just "collapses"  usually it starts failing and filling over time giving you regular problems.  

(What I mean by likely worst case is taking into consideration a possible recession but not economic collapse.)Third, with your lease option scenario, you would be putting down $30K to make $12K maximum per year--and it would likely be less than that.  

My aunt would  have made a point to let me know if it collapsed.

Often the drain line is in the floor and we constantly have problems with those old metal lines clogging and collapsing.  

With the collapse in oil prices combined with a rocky ag economy in the area I expect to see some more attractive deals in our market over the next year or two.