With the door open, the controls appear to work as normal (power button and cycle selection knob appear functional).  

Finally, use all these numbers, including purchase price, repairs, rental income, expenses, and sales price or cash out refi after X number of years (you can play with these parameters) and calculate IRR on the series (can use the excel function to do this) ... this is your total return, over the life of the investment, including ALL sources of profit.

@Troy Zsofka I did get the septic checked, and its functioning correctly all the way out to the leech field, so green light there.

If you are buying conventional and the repairs don't affect the functionality of the property, it will never come into play.

While you are examining heating, plumbing, electrical, smoke/CO detectors, weatherization, locks/doors/windows/screens, appliance function, etc, keep an eye out for lease violations and how well they take care of the unit.

For me, I can do many of the functions that I am doing with real estate as an attorney anyways, however, access to the MLS for me is everything.

We don't allow our tenants to mess with the HVAC and we replace the filters on schedule because tenants rarely do what is required to keep the furnace functioning properly.

I would think using a savings account or using a variety of cd's and rotating them over.  

Older homes in our area often have a functioning forced air furnace with ducts for all 1st floor rooms but gravity registers (basically holes-with-grills through the 1st fl ceiling/2nd fl floor) for the 2nd floor.  

Every hard money lender I have used functioned similarly to a traditional lender in that they want you to get "pre approved".