Are they a lot easier than flipping houses since you're not dealing with stuff like foundation issues and dry rot? A

I was in Rota, Spain and the homes  purchased and sold were in the US.

Anything else, you will be reworking again in a few years or much less, and likely repairing subfloor wood rot as well. 

As for the bundling of houses, my assumption (and I know it's not good to assume) is that those properties were purchased and left to rot a long time ago which is why they are unappealing.

All in all I would just replace it and try to find a lower cost contractor to replace the fence, as was stated $15-30 would be more along the lines of costs, but again I'm not there.I did look up weather history and 41 mph was the highest gust recorded in the past couple months, so I would say from past experience they will lean on rot as the cause of the collapse, not wind.  

My first duty stations include:Naples Italy, Everett, Washington,Bremerton Washington, Rota Spain, and am currently stationed in the beautiful island of Okinawa, Japan.I have a 2-year-old named Liam and a beautiful wife named Jessica.Even though I have lived in Washington State on two of my duty stations, I was attached to a ship that was predominantly gone from most of my time so in reality, I have lived almost my entire adult life away from the United States.I have been very interested in real estate investing for the past couple of years but it has been very difficult for me to find out a starting point.