As 88% of all households still want to own a home, as they do, they are pumping millions into the retail sector, as they purchase furniture, lawn mowers, trash cans, dishes, etc. to outfit and maintain their homes.As someone in the trenches daily, I can tell you that the market still feels healthy to me.

Several ideas come to mind.Find an investor or two with "bigger pockets" cash wise than you do right now and cut them in on the deal.You offer to handle everything like rehab costs and the actual work of getting it done(dealing with contractors,real estate agent,etc) and just let them use their cash to pay for the initial purchase.An out of state cash investor like me might want to get in on a nice deal like that.Another idea is to wholesale the house for a smaller but,quicker profit.Get it under contract for a rock bottom tasty price and sell it to a bigger pocket investor before the deal closes.There are plenty of hard money lenders if you want the entire potential profit .Make them compete for your business.

From the windows, I saw there was a big mess inside the house: very dirty carpet; old and dirty furniture randomly stacked on each other; all kitchen cabinet drawers were pulled out; no clothes, dishes or food, no any sign that someone lives there.

They have been given a chance to move in and hopefully own a very upgraded home will all upgrades that they could never right now afford, and they are too lazy to: recycle dead batteries ( it's hard to drop off at most car supply stores, Sears, etc), do not live up to agreements with any company ( landlord, DirectV, Dish TV, etc), Always switch jobs ( I approve the lease based on their incomes, and they wait until moved in and then change - as if they know how the landlord "game" is played), etc.

@Jeremy Tillotson  anyone in the business long enough will run into one of these.what I get a kick out of is buyers of new homes or turn key homes have an inspection and the inspector finds a little bit of MOld and all hell breaks lose.. and then you have these folks who have lived successfully in a petrie dish for decades LOL..

I didn't think to do this when my tenants wanted to have Direct TV dish installed.

I am thinking about providing new tenants with a welcome basket of basic cleaning supplies and household items like: paper towels, toilet paper, toilet brush, plunger, dish soap, and all purpose cleaner.    

A good way to check if they are still in the property is by placing small aluminum 8x9 baking pans with water and dish soap on the floor, spread them through out the rooms. 

(washing dishes, sheets, dusting, vacuuming every time / floor cleaning, window washing as needed) then say what you can offer for pay (15% of rental amount, $100 per rental).

Reasonable times of use, cleaning up after yourself, any areas of the property that are forbidden (IE garage or attic), are they going to bring their own dishes or are you going to provide them, maybe even something about "quiet" hours.