Another we looked at was physically in two pieces, a left house side and a right house side with a crack 1-3 inches wide through the cement floor front to back. 

Offer to put up a tall fence in front of his property.

As far as I can tell, the world as a whole is in a downswing but the US has stood tall against other countries. 

I mean , Is there anything at tall  i could do to get better rates? 

Lender is saying it’s impossible though It would be one thing if it was an inch of gangway (not the building itself) between two houses in an urban area, but six feet of building?

Generally for every inch a slab will have an R-value of 0.5-0.7, so a 6 inch slab will have an R-value of 3-5.

Inching closer to the 7% mark, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has climbed to 6.90%, up from 6.77% last week and notably higher than the 6.50% recorded a year ago, according to Freddie Mac data.After a period of smaller rate movements offering some relief to homebuyers, recent signals from the Federal Reserve hinting at delayed rate cuts have sparked an upward trend.Sam Khater, Chief Economist at Freddie Mac, emphasizes that strong economic and inflation data are driving this shift.

I’ve run into a dispute with my property manager and am hoping to hear how others might handle this situation.The property manager just turned over a nicely updated apartment and in addition to the normal repairs and painting, installed new 2 inch blinds and ceiling fans in the apartment.

If you are going that route build a triplex not a duplex. we have a plan that is 35' tall and has the same floorplan stacked 3 times.

(In fact keep a half inch gap between the wood and the brick.)