Continuing education adult education, crash seminars, and special short courses are not acceptable.

How many people in your household (adults and children)4.

In that case, a house orig. built in 1978 would be serious competition with one orig. built in 1999.  60% of the time you may be catering to first time home buying couples looking to start a family and will be in the home for 5 years on average and 25% you're customers are fresh out of college singles with a cushy six-figure income that want to be amidst all of the action in town, who moves after 1 to 3 years  Then there's the already established single / couple (who has adult kids not living with them) looking to down-grade in size or for a simple change, from suburbs to rural maybe, whom you cater to 15% of the time and don't plan on moving after this. 

Unfortunately, last year both elderly females (sisters) passed away and the only person been left on the lease is the widowed husband.

My 23yr old daughter shares her large home with a 24 yr old female (Phd grad) from the Philippines & it's a blast.

And the area has to be safe as I am a 27 year old female and don't want to be concerned about the safety of the neighborhood (and would like to attract good tenants). 

It will take months of savings to acquire significant furnds for a down payment, 20K on a 100k purchase on an after tax basis from savings will take at east 133 months or 11 years gaining 200 bucks gross a month.After seeing thousands of people over thier personal and business finance issues, I could count such savers on one hand, if most people get 150 bucks after tax monthly, the kids will usually get a new toy, if they don't the adults will or it mostly turns into disposable income in reality.Over that 11 years very little has gone to principal reduction, but there may be closing costs for a new loan. the equity should hit 15 to 20% even in slower markets if you buy decent properties.

I decided that I would continue to pay the water bills, but kept asking for money.I was finally able to get one of the adults to sign the lease (there are 5 adults living in the house, gram, mom, son, 2x daughters).

It is at a cost of $40.For Tenant, if they are interested in signing a lease: 1.Fill out preliminary application.2.Verify application for 3 times monthly rent income, pay stubs, no felony, no evictions, at least 1 year on job.3.Query all adult names in state Courts Online system.4.Query Facebook.5.Query County Assessor page for properties in their name (foreclosure?)

It's called acting like an adult.