Some of the reasons I'm considering on making the jump into this area is because they are steadily continuing to develop at a crazy rate, it has good highway access, the neighbors are cool and the location to the shopping center makes it ideal.

@Kenny Lee  totally disagree with that thought process.while strange and some judges are more democratic than others.. the thought that the bench is saving tax payers money by letting dead beat tenants stay in houses is just a pipe dreamyou have to remember certain markets were ripe for all sorts of real estate fraud etc.. and detroit area was one.

I remember a cheap house in Potomac people wouldnt even enter due to mold.  

I remember someone saying their lender was understanding that they had to honor the lease and they wouldn't be able to move in for a few months, as long as they moved in as soon as it opened up.

That's not ideal but no purchase is usually better than the wrong purchase. 

Remember you will have 8 sets of appliances, water heaters, a/c systems, plumbing and electrical systems to deal with.  

Remember we're using Cozy so this could have been an honest mistake, but they still only filled out one address. 

Ideally the rents would be under market with the units as-is, or under what you could get after relatively minor updates to the units, giving you an opportunity to increase NOI.Of course the expenses in the listing are only $9,784 per year - in listings they are always going to be low, to inflate the NOI. 

Could realistically probably afford 200-300k purchase price, but would ideally like to stay under that, maybe $150k or less. 

Frequently, vacation rental rules differ if the residence is "owner occupied" remember depending on the state "owner occupied" can be as little as 2 weeks out of the year.