Back Story- my husband and I would like to buy a 4plex  4 hours away in our favorite city to be used for weekends/holiday.

Now if the rehab is going to be your only job, that’s a different story; it’s doable.

Any advice & personal success stories and tips would be appreciated.

I've heard numerous stories on both sides, the ones who fight DNS and the ones who work with them and have yet to hear of anyone beating them one way or another, its best to be their friend.

As an agent, you should have a certain working knowledge, you seem to be missing.You can't "access the equity" when you are simply leasing the property and title is not in your name.Assuming it's not an FHA loan, which by your back story it won't be, it will not be assumable.  

Now my dad is running low on funds " that's another story s".

If she would have paid for a termite inspection the story would have been completely different. 

My friend owns and operates a construction company and has government contracts and owns a shopping mall, his contracts have an average of 1M and has an varies between 2-4 a year, foreign assets are around 2M.So to wrap the story short: 1.

The demographics of Lake County haven't changed considerably since the prisons in the Bay Area stopped giving free bus tickets to Lake County to ex-cons several years ago.I can't tell you how many times I've heard this story.  

Long story short, would i buy from them again...probably, because some homes are good deals and I've learned how to deal with them...but they are a headache to work with.