But my definite short(ish) term goal is to buy this home within 8 years.

Having lived in the house for a very short time, I have gotten to know the property and what it needs done as far as preventative maintenance (luckily not much at all).Where I am stumped is my gutters.

On short notice, this costs us $240...I know, I know...smh.

A real quick way to find out what those advantages are...is invest OOS and you will likely learn some good ones in short order.  

The short version of how we ended up here is we bought a house to fix up while we lived in it.

I'm almost positive Marty was one of my instructors....short guy from New York?

If a seller is just testing the market with no real motivation to sell (death,divorce, downsizing, moving for job relocation,illness,estate sale,short sale,etc.) then you as an agent can spend all this money marketing a listing to it then not sell.

@Rory Compton - It's a short sale, so the list price is really irrelevant, because it is subject to bank approval.  

And then I was thinking of handling it like a short sale.

But long story short, I think your cousin should absolutely consider talking to an elder law specialist on this topic.