Due to setbacks and difficult neighbors, tearing down and rebuilding wasn't an option either.

@Tom Ott  the old rust belt cities have such huge swaths of demographic shifts with erosions of values to the point the homes cost 1/4 of what they would cost to rebuild .. these areas have turned into the land of the turn key operator or landlord rental area.. and as such the values are more commercial in nature IE they will never really move unless rents move... as long as rents are stable ( which in my 20 years of working in those markets they have)  Investors just back into what they will pay for a given cash flow.. the property is just a vessel if you will.. since there are more homes than butts to put into them in many of these areas.. like Detroit you could bull doze 30k homes and still have left over housing for the population.Down town resurgence is happening in virtually every big city as the millinial buyer and older folks as well are tired of commuting and want a different life style.. and developers are filling that niche.I know in Portlandia its very true. 

You can do everything you can to mitigate your risk but there's always the possibility of things not going as planned.Have you worked on rebuilding your credit?

@Clint Worland Just so I am clear, your in the process of a complete demo and then gonna rebuild?

I have no desire to put money down and I have been rebuilding my credit.

Looking to do my first demo / new build onsite. Wondering if most people work with a local architect to design a house plan, or order from the many online home plan retailers? The online route seems to be way more eco...

How much does it cost to scrape a property and rebuild?  

I did find from the county tax assessors site,  that the property type is listed as MINOR MULT/MINOR MULT.I am hoping it means that if we tear both down we can rebuild two.

The cost of purchasing the property plus re-building is not in our budget so we need a loan from an investor. 

Two possible suggestions I have.First reside the dormer in a brick farcade so it does not stand out as much.The second, would be to rebuild the roof of the dormer so it ties into the roof sloping to the rear of the house.