I finally get the chance to be hands on (I have always done hands on hobbies, wood work, car rebuilding, etc...) with the aspects I want, I save paying a contractor for that work, and like doing it.

If a property is in a poor, rundown condition and is assessed at 5k, when it is rebuild it will be valued much higher.

Free up the $1000/mo and let it rebuild.

The only way I would invest would be with a turnkey company the has good experience including the rebuild specks and the customer services with the tenant.  

With this area being declared a Federal Disaster I would think that there would be some aide or assistance on the city or state level to rebuild the housing stock hit hard.

I'm not going to bother with rebuilding a proforma but I assume you would have had a decent cash flow generating a few hundred dollars a month in rent. 

Under the present circumstances, while I continue to rebuild my credit seems like the HML's terms are kinda of short.

I would only use it for $75K+ of work or a guts-out rebuild to be able to amortize the costs over a 30yr fixed low-rate mortgage, because I'm a 'buy and hold' investor rather than flipper..http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?

Appraisers are not typically told "go out and appraise this property based on income approach" -- they're given a property assignment, and when they get there (or after they've looked at the property and are sitting down to write their report), they determine "highest and best use" to decide which value determination best fits the property. 9/10 this is comparable sales. if there aren't good comps, next best option is most-often cost to rebuild.

He is current on everything else; zero credit cards, no car loans, etc.and got good ref's from his previous landlord.I remember hearing in a seminar that Student debt is the hardest to correct and rebuild credit - any advice out there?