Be honest with yourself about what you will and won't be doing and then make sure you have people who can help you with the other aspects.I think its human nature to value what we enjoy.

I agree with Jay, $400k seems light for a full gut reno on a high end property in that area (although kinda hard to say without understanding square footage naturally). 

Relying on appreciation alone is purely speculative in nature and can backfire.

Of course people will instinctively make a snap judgment about who you are as soon as they see you, it's human nature.

I've heard of something similar as a delayed financing or something of that nature. 

You can do it yourself but you want to tread carefullyThe difference is that the IRS gives a lot of extra scrutiny over arrangements like this because it is very easy to create a step transaction and reduce the arms length nature with the unrelated party. 

Naturally, a recession hit, just after we moved in and landlord went BK.

I spend maybe an hour a week on it; I find once you have it set up a natural repeatable process emerges.

Update: After 3 years of owning this property I decided to sell it, through forced appreciation and a natural boom in the Ontario housing market was able to sell for $424,000 and walk away with a $200K Profit (Tax-free due to principal residence).

While there is a good bit of discussion here on the BP forums, not all of it is comprehensive or even accurate... the nature of web forums.