Your personal assets are not exposed.Say someone slips and falls on your broken rental property sidewalk, all they could sue you for is the equity held by that LLC and nothing more. 

My sewer was cast iron and needed to be replaced $$Since my project was to make significant changes to the home and lot the city told us we needed to comply with new zoning restrictions such as add sidewalk$, street side tree$, and so on.Best of luck

The tenant can and will sue you personally because you were the person who negligently failed to fix the slippery sidewalk or dangerous electrical issue.Owning properties in an LLC may protect your from some liabilities, but again, if the plaintiff can show that your personal negligence led to his damages (or if he can pierce the veil of your llc), you will be held personally liable.

There are numerous examples of conservatives taking full advantage and more of govt help and going against their strongly held "principles".The vast majority of people are simply demanding that the govt "make them whole" as a result of every flood or every crime or every terrorist attack or every recession or every slip on the sidewalk.

Off the top of my head we look at the roof condition, windows, exterior condition (rotting wood, broken siding, cracks in brick, etc), gutters and downspouts, yard and landscaping, general curb appeal / potential, grading, light fixtures, trim, doors, driveways, sidewalks, etc.4)We have flipped houses with foundation issues, mold damage, electric overhauls, etc, so it is not what you need to avoid per say, but being able to put a price-tag on issues and accurately estimate rehab costs and value after the repairs are completed.

If there are any red stains on the sidewalks, that is not paint my friend.There are other indicators I'm sure, not living in a big city I'm not that familiar with such areas, but generally if you ask yourself a question before you invest it might be helpful in your marketing plans: Would I have lived there?

Our broken sidewalk is angled towards the building, allowing water to go towards the foundation.  

One noted that the sidewalk out front was cracked, which anybody could see without paying for an inspection.

The front sidewalk is mostly what I'm concerned about.

We've yet to run into any major repairs that have had to be done, thankfully, they've typically been things we do ourselves on our quarterly walk-throughs for PM, or they've been convenience repairs like sanding and re-staining the decks and power washing the siding and sidewalks.