Renovation The plan was to gut and rebuild the kitchen and bathrooms, replace/refinish all of the flooring, replace all of the lighting, repaint, complete extensive landscaping and other odds and ends.

Unfortunately our credit is poor but rebuilding.

I like the idea of a simple written agreement saying you pay to remediate and they pay if its new or they desire a more extensive rebuild but I don't know how you would write that. 

If it's just you and nobody else and you can live in a box etc. if it doesn't work and rebuild then that is different from having a family etc.When people call me and ask about buying properties that are much larger in size my response varies based on their situation.

Do you mean major renovation that takes the entire top of the house off and rebuilds it?  

Its right in the middle of many residential houses.  3) A duplex was actually the first thought that entered his head before he got the estimate for rebuilding.  

I put a minimum $1 bid in just to see how their system works, and what do you know, I won it for 1$, and seller pays closing costs.Hudson and Marshall called me after and asked if I was sure I wanted this property, stating it probably needs a full tear down / rebuild, and may not be worth as much as it would cost to rehab (and I appreciate the call of course). 

In the case of a total loss, I will not try to rebuild it.

Online sources of information are hard to find and am trying to get a sense of what a gut and rebuild might cost for my future home.

The seller agreed to our P&S price is $174200 with $9200 in seller concessions for closing costs/escrow. the home inspection found some issues, so we amended the P&S and the seller agreed to every single one of them and remedied all of the repairs with professional contractors which included replacing basement stairs, rebuilding the top of the chimney, replacing one of the furnaces and one of the water heaters, among a few other minor repairs. this was all fantastic and im very happy that the seller agreed to EVERYTHING!!!!