It's in an up and coming area, it needs some updating, but is a 1925 bungalow with great bones and we are hoping to make some money. 

Automatically reject a tight tank unless there's an extraordinary reason not to.If it looks like there's meat on the bone, go for a look and make a fast decision and write an offer and hopefully we get it accepted.The key is to get the offer submitted as fast as humanly possible, preferably before the open house - and set a *very* fast expiration on the offer so the seller / seller's agent doesn't have a lot of time to shop it around.For experienced flippers who want to forego the home inspection, great - eliminate the inspection contingency. 

It's the only way you'll find a deal with meat on the bones.

@Alex VerdugoThe remaining $350K or so is meat on the bone for the buyer or investor.

They then take those notes and package them with others from similar purchases and sell them along with their analysis to private investment funds.This leaves 45 notes from a package of 1,000 that three professional investment funds, doing intensive analysis by highly trained MBAs, have determined cannot yield even a minimal investment return.These are then offered to the individual investor, who according to those in the industry “with something to sell” (the leftover NPNs and/or “training”) can profit enormously by (1) making them re-performing notes or (2) foreclosing and selling the property for large profits.The pitch from those “with something to sell” is twofold: (1) “There is plenty of meat left on the bone” (actual quote), and (2) if you send the borrower a complete package of all docs, weighing, say, five pounds you will “shock and awe” him into paying on the note.I highly doubt either of these claims have even a micron of validity.The parties with a financial interest in you buying into this will cite isolated instances of great success, never mentioning the all-more-frequent instances of total failure.So at the end of the day the training promoters have collected up to $30,000 per person for their NPN “mentoring”/”coaching” program, the retail asset disposer has made 50% to 100% profit on their inventory, private middlemen have turned a $2,500 investment in a note into $16,000, and my sister-in-law who purchased 5 NPNs over three years ago and has spent large amounts on attorneys, taxes, and brokers has yet to see a penny in return.To paraphrase, if you don’t know who the sucker is in any ultra-high profit promise situation, it’s you.

They leave no meat on the bone.

Bate Hendricks neighborhood is often featured on the HGTV show Good Bones, as are the neighboring areas of Fountain Square and Old Southside.Watch that show and you can get an idea of the type of homes that are there.  

I'm talking decades of neglect, which probably means a teardown to the bones and hoping the bones are still good.

If it's unrealistic to have this goal, I'd love some input to get a bare bones starter single family home. 

For example, the house may have great bones and original wood work.