Infrastructure (eg water, sewer, electrical supply to the house) should be the landowners' responsibility. 

Actually buying these apartments and not the current supply is a good opportunity.

It is challenging to build an underwriting box for something that fell outside an underwriting box.

If you have this debt and need money, you may not be preparing yourself for the challenges of being a landlord.

Securing financing is often one of the biggest challenges new real estate investors face.

So an investor buys the property, you pay them a down payment for the lease option then pay rent for a year and after a year you have option to buy it.What makes this challenging is the lease option payment would probably need to be around 20% of the purchase price but it sounds likeyou do not have it. maybe moving is just not in the cards.

I recommend you call a local agent or broker to give you a better lay of the land so you understand the challenges/opportunities in this area.

What was that challenge like?

Challenges?

The location hasn't had a lot of demand which has made it challenging for him to find an end buyer.