Has anyone in the Baltimore area looked into any of these really cheap but beat down houses?

All you have to do is follow up with your maintenance guy.Probably I went overboard with it all.Either way, Avail is a cool and cheap way of managing your properties if you are small.

I recently bought a house in Newark, things are still cheap out here, and I’m still like 50 mins from NY Penn Station.

He's do decent work for cheap, and then one day he sobers up and decides to see if he can take you for a ride to fund his next tool purchase.You didn't get a written estimate, so you left yourself open to abuse.

If, by chance, you do find a hard/private money lender willing to do a loan on that cheap of a house, make sure you can refi out of it before you get into it since hard money loans typically have a relatively short term (i.e. 12 months). 

We're determining when we'll be heading down to get the lay of the land, but in the meantime, please connect with me and when you can, let's talk about what we're looking to do and then pass some listings that look ideal.Possibly, we may even want something cheap and just keep it for weekends and renovating.Cool?

I can tell you that I live in a relatively cheap area, come from a blue collar background, already own everything I really need in life, and I would find it impossible to retire on 2 SFHs. 

Is it worth it to pay extra to get the job done quickly and correctly or is it better to be at the mercy of the cheap dude? 

If they're cheap and available, there's a chance their work might not be up to your standards (depends on what your standards are).

Legal advice isn't gonna be cheap but I think it might be worth it in this case.