And finally, no doc & no money down lending by banks/brokers meant many had no skin in the new game.

You could wait until this appreciation occurs and then try to get the neighbors to clean up their act for a minute so you could sell it, but (even putting ethics aside here) a remotely intelligent buyer would be asking about the neighbors, past issues, etc, since there is a shared wall.If you really think the area is about to appreciate (and you have corroboration on that from outside parties with no skin in the game), could you work with the owner on his price (given the issues with bed bugs and maintenance), with the understanding that you'd basically be paying a premium to gain control over your prop value and own two props that are likely to appreciate?

Being generous you'll get $5K per year out of this property (that's assuming that your equity partner will split returns evenly with you even though you're a rookie with no skin in the game) and I wouldn't bank on that.  

Even though you are qualified for 400k, most lenders want you to have "skin in the game."  

You could purchase the first one through conventional financing in order to give him a chunk of change up front, plus put some skin in the game.

And lets face it .. those deals are not just sitting on the branch's to be plucked.. in many markets deals are dog tough.In my mind EsPecially as a beginner first thing you need to do is get the discipline to save cash for equity and or put a group together so that you are bringing in true equity.if I borrow from a HML like lendinghome or Conventus  I need to put skin in the game..

This will allow you to save a chunk of money so you can then "have some skin in the game" when working with private or hard lenders.

I'm really not looking for a yes/no, to my "untrained" eye all the numbers seem ok (expenses don't seem under-estimated, the increase of ~250$/mo/door rent over 3 years seems reasonable considering the area, sponsor has some skin in the game and they have been in business in that area for a couple decades, ...), so I was looking to some more seasoned investor willing to share with me any clues as to how this deal might be bad (the only one I can think of is that returns might be very tight if a downturn occurs over the holding period, however since this one is not a class-A SFR property it should be more resilient).I would be looking to invest about ~50k$ in this, which is a small enough portion of my net worth (< 10%).Thank you.

But fire can also burn your food, scald your skin, and it can burn down your house. 

If you choose to stay past March 1st an new lease will need to created and signed".BP experts - See any other ways I can skin this that won't tank the sale?