Living thousands of miles away from KC makes it a much easier decision as well :P I calculate PM fees into my analysis (in addition to vacancy, maintenance/capX).

I had zero REI experience beforehand and would literally not be where I am today without Palak, Niti and their community.  2 posts so a paid shill?

He has all the numbers and can show you how purchasing a home on a 30 year mortgage is wasting 100's of thousands of dollars because of interest, etc. 

Have your sticky notes printed at a print shop a few thousand at a time if you're serious about buying houses.Choose neighborhoods with homes likely to sell, such as older areas or places with recent foreclosures.

You can use a portion for private lending, and for the balance, you have thousands of other investment options.

Permits/city  will cost you thousands more and at least 2 months. 

This is literally the first sentence from the description...Have you ever thought about buying rental properties abroad?

You’ve just flushed thousands waiting to end up with a dog anyway. 

Think of it this way, if you have a roof leak, that could cost you tens of thousands later, vs a few thousand now (and it is at the end of its life anyway and in rough shape)

...if you have hundreds of thousands or millions in reserve, it might not be an issue  ...but if you only have a few thousand, it will be a major problem.Now, having said all that, there definitely are scenarios where a structural issue is an easy, relatively cheap fix. ...and, there are some examples of settlement that can be ignored--for instance, minor settlement on a 100 year old house is fairly common, and might not affect the structural integrity of the house.But, again (assuming that you're not a structural engineer), you don't know what you don't know--it could be five hundred bucks and a weekend of work, or it could be a hundred thousand dollars, a year of your life, eight months of vacancy, and ultimately bankruptcy.