It probably needs to be addressed to keep the house safe to inhabit long term even if we keep it as a rental.  

Any part fo Texas you might recommend that are safe?

Moving forward scaling with hard money loans may be the best bet and would avoid the headaches of living in a construction project. 

If you could furnish the rooms, I'd say that is best bet for cash flow.

Spending on expensive upgrades is not the answer to improve your tenant base in this type of area.Keep the homes habitable, clean, and safe. 

I'm betting he'd drive to that area.

Their clear incentive is to bet on falling interest rates between now and debt maturity.A small handful of owners are forced to sell due to a looming balloon payment that a refi won't cover, but you're not going to find one of those by driving the market when any commercial broker can just look up properties on that basis and start making calls. 

I really can say that everything needs to be perfectly handled without any room for error.However, you do not need to go and study all aspects of Dodd/Frank, Safe Act, Senate Bill 43, the Property Code, the Finance Code, insurance law and all case law regarding wraps. 

If I were a betting man the company is folding up and this dutch character is out there doing the guru circuit as only source of $ and idiots will pay for training from someone like this.  

You would still save more money 9 out of 10 times living with your parents but being able to leverage a low down payment loan will allow you to get a very high ROI on relatively safe investment.