Or, you could also pull a list of pre-foreclosures, skip-trace, contact sellers and see if you could help them get out of the house with less damage and loss than if their house went through foreclosure. 

@Justin Reyes Let me ask you this...If you owned a marketable piece of real estate and no longer cared to own the property what would you rather do: (a) Sell the property, pay off your mortgage and move on to other opportunities; or(b) Sell the property without paying off the loan,  remain liable for the loan as the note signer and trust the buyer will continue to make payments on that loan, and if they don't your personal credit is damaged? 

I am going back through the signed Pet Agreement and I do have two statements pertaining to this that read "Tenant will not allow pet(s) to cause any danger, damage, nuisance, undue noise, or health hazard," and "Dogs: Must be controlled at all times.

As soon as you take possession, do a walk through to document the condition of the home, so that when the tenant does move out, you know what was damaged AFTER you bought it.

Average vacancy term on a renovation project: 3-6 mos. unless severely damaged (i.e. fire).

Farmer Insurance agent assured me that the rental property is covered from tenant and/or vandalism damages.

Obviously the security deposit is meant for a different purpose (towards damages and repairs)… but it acts as a goal post for us.  

I just submitted another app for the fire damaged house to my left.

There's a real good chance that the lease requires them to do several things: upkeep on the unit is a big one (damage to property), weeds outside and landscaping (which encourage pests and insects to inhabit the property), pets authorized or not, additional tenants on the property that are not on the lease.

was the water damage visible in the basement when you bought?