you can tell from my picture that I do not resemble the main stream  shape or skin color . 

If you don't understand what you need to do to make this situation work, call an electrician.If not cutting into the wall is an absolute requirement, you can get surface-mountable two-gang electrical boxes. 

It seems like it should be easy on the surface, but there are a lot of moving parts in management and each company operates differently.  

Second, you would effectively have no skin in the game.

I thought that was fair - he is also going to look into getting a line of credit to throw a little cash into the deal or keep it as a reserve so he has some skin in the game.  

But like you said, school is in session for only 8 months but it seems ideal on the surface to buy property on "campus."

It worked out well for him, because he basically got a "turn key" house that he could "test drive" for a year before actually buying without much skin in the game on his end...

There's a lot more to consider than just the surface costs. 

On the surface it was great, but then we started finding out what was underneath.

I've got a list of about 20 properties this month in the Orlando area out of about 200 that look somewhat interesting on the surface.