If I "cleaned it up" (the way any investor would clean up any home to be remodeled, i.e. this home is OLD, plaster and lathe... would replace with sheet rock, EVERY surface in the home would be new) and later conducted a meth test ONLY to satisfy my curiosity... and said test results were negative, where is the meth house?

So you'll need $80-120k for a good SFR or duplex in a market like Indy, Little Rock...

In the future if we do I think we will pull out the old ceiling and put in new insulation AND put up the quiet rock.  

@James Edmister,I'm going to go contrary to "popular opinion" here...My advice is to use your available resources to invest for income and use THAT to pay down your debts.

Yes, a "yellow letter" is most popular with yellow lined paper and red ink, but that isn't the ONLY way to do it, nor the way you HAVE to do it.Good luck!

Whatever market you select should be well known and be popular to other investors who can be your friends.  

GR's are not as popular as they use to be - Baltimore has changed the rules - guess what - if you don't pay the ground rent they can sue you only for 3 years back payments - it use to be that the GR hold could get your house.What's good about GR's?

The two most popular options seem to be using 15% downpayment if buying a duplex or by using an FHA loan that requires 3.5% downpayment plus additional fees depending on the total loan amount.  

Popular day!

You Rock!