There are multi-million dollar houses that you can walk just a couple short blocks and watch the neighborhood get pretty rough and potentially dangerous.

Any architect or engineer you hire to work on the project will be able to help walk you through the process on each deal.

You as the buyer also have rights under fair lending and you should never be forced to use a builders lender. 90% of the time lenders drop the ball and end up not being able to close on time or their overlays cost the buyer the deal and in some cases earnest money.I would walk away from a deal that forces you to put $50K in earnest and use some generic lender who may not even be able to close the deal.

That average person given limited access to a property is not going to have the experience required to know what to look for.Yes, i would have a couple of your most trustworthy contractors with you when you walk the property and i'd film the walkthrough / take as many photos as you can.With a full hour you can easily assess most of what would be needed to account for 

He said there was no equity in the property and yet he walked away with money at closing.So, he buys a property that has no equity, uses an unsophisticated gator lender to overfund the deal, above the value of the property and he gets cash out.For those of you in Rio Linda land, that means there is nothing protecting the gator lender.

If it looks like a tough go, you can walk away or renegotiate price.  

He wants to help me out and walk me through this process and give me a good property.

If they don't cooperate with you in this regard, I'd rather walk away than close this deal.  

Who walked it and gave you the reno budget ? 

They collect a month of rent and then walk away, whereas a property manager has to deal with that tenant for the next year.