I have 9ft ceilings, but adding a whole new framing and moving trimouts would be a much bigger job.

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560, little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

You'll probably pay fees and it'll be tougher to find a bank that would be willing to pull cash out for reasons other than direct improvements to the property. 

I would only hire out for major work I can't do myself or emergency repairs.I've dealt with older houses before and the house may be fine for occupants but there's still usually lots of things that can be fixed / improved so it seems a house that isn't perfect would give more opportunities for ongoing maintenance of this sort.To me it seems fairly straightforward to meet the time requirements but I think I need to have extensive documentation?

His wife who is in college for a degree that will lead to a great job with great pay when she graduates in June, now has full rent to pay, plus the cost of raising 6 kids by herself. 

Additionally, the macroeconomics here has seen significant growth - population and jobs are both growing, and major companies started moving and developing here (Intel, Google, Amazon, FB, etc).

WWC likes to create several levels of value add in a community, with various levels of interior improvements.

Do we really want the government to rely on getting more people to smoke more marijuana in order to do their job protecting us and maintaining our infrastructure and schools?

Your new potential guests are insurance companies for homeowner displacement (flood, fire), buyers looking to move to the area but not sure where they want to be, sellers who want to sell but have nowhere to go, contract workers in the area, adjunct professors on a semester job, etc.

I would suggest starting in areas like Merion/Hungarian for value-add opportunities, South Linden for fixer-uppers, and Whitehall - improving market.