His ADU was a garage conversion with small external laundry/storage room.  

In both instances, there is either an internal (personal, family etc.) or external (nonpersonal, economic etc.) factor influencing the decision.A seller with a balloon or adjustable rate mortgage will have a mighty good reason to sell and avoid foreclosure if they can't refinance to avoid paying off entire loan balance or get a lower affordable rate.

success is not solely a result of hard work, but is influenced by external factors such as luck and risk.God luck to all!

New external / internal paint.

and think of all the worst, divorces can force partition sales, so many external forces could effect your partners ability to contribute (as many when-if's you can think of)if the whole hing is really short term?

We also used the opportunity provided by the extend of the demolition to do the following:Install a free-floating, insulated (R10) subfloor (a first for us) over the slab on the main level;move the laundry under the stairs to the second level - a better use of space than the deep sloped ceiling closet that was there;resize kitchen - we made the kitchen 42" longer, but this necessitated moving the electrical panel into an 18" upper cabinet;reconfigure the bathroom - with the laundry not moved out of the bathroom, we made the bathroom a little deeper (about 6"); moved the toilet slightly; shifted the tub about 18" and moved the vanity to the other side of the room;reduce the size of the living room window to an 18" transom window giving much more usable wall space;replace the broken windows with Energy Star certified windows tuned for their exposure;build an entertainment feature wall on the living room side of the stairwell.open-up both sides of the stair well (living room and hall by bathroom) - this allows for better air circulation - a necessity when we install the heat pump.Here are a few select shots of the process:Demolition begins:Repairing sections of wall:All electrical and data network runs were installed, then next came the insulation:We finished shifting our plumbing and patching the slab.Next we "leveled" the slab ... ok, we made it better ... and laid the subfloor:Note that we installed 4" high, plywood spacers around the perimeter to keep the floor ~1/2" away from the external walls.  

There should not be an ultimate goal set for a certain amount of money that needs to me made, or be motivated externally.

I know being 21 and not afraid to make big decisions can have both positive and negative externalities.

This is in Fulton county in the city of Atlanta and not the external counties in the MSA area.

In 1946, lead pipe should not have been used;drum traps;unvented fixtures;cast-iron sewer main which is near, or at, end-of-life.General:Asbestos - in flooring (9x9 tiles); drywall mud; pipe wrap; external siding;rock board / plaster board - drywall was still a relatively "new" thing and some of the early iterations were hard boards intended to replace lath as a substrate for plaster;barker board - common in kitchens and bathrooms;gypsum wool insulation  - paper-backed insulation batts spun from molten rock and slag.