My question: is it profitable to Raze-Rebuild-Sell, do repairs and sell, or just cut my losses and sell it AS IS?

The situation is the way it is because households are still rebuilding their credit and rates are very low, and once credit is rebuilt the cost of owning can exceed that of renting, especially with higher mortgage rates.The economics at $750 are different: the tenant pay does not have access to credit, he does not want to take care of a home and will let not fix leaks or change aircon filters. 

If it’s “destroyed” the city/county/state is going to make you scrape the lot clean if you don’t plan to rebuild. 

In a Northern VA market where so many old properties are marked for tear down and rebuild, (1) how can I go about convincing the seller to lower the listing price so the math supports the renovation? 

Has anyone ever tried to bring a group of investors together to rebuild a town?

Make sure you get insurance for the cash value of the property rather than the much more expensive re-build value.

If you are in the south end do you really want to drive to Duvall to rebuild a leaky toilet?

I'm looking for a contractor to do a repair that might last a couple of years before I take the step of demolishing the whole structure (and probably rebuilding).

An insurance company will probably put a rebuild cost of $35 per square foot...so if your facility is in the 15000-20000 square foot range, I think your quote is not out of whack. 

Alexey, you make great points and yes I was leaving all of this open to discussion so I did not put my own time frame estimate on a potential crash, I like to stir the pot.Germany was beaten, and needed to rebuild.