On your analysis you put a down payment of $6k.

It sounds like you could have a deal on your hands though...I would quickly but thoroughly finish up your analysis and get an offer in so you don't lose the deal.

It may be very hard to do but a really beneficial exercise may be to step back from the issue and evaluate it from a long term cash flow/value analysis standpoint.

@Nathan Joens I would say analysis paralysis - in the beginning people spend months or years reading and learning but never doing.

If I cannot definitively determine that a property is vacant, how do I account for that in my decision-making analysis?

J is very thorough and gives a great analysis of how to estimate costs.

That said, I also don't want to suffer from analysis paralysis!

I will post my analysis in the forums and invite discussions.

In order to FIND this maximum allowable price you should pay for the investment, search around BP a bit for deal analysis forums and you'll come across a few good spreadsheets and deal analyzers that do lots of the work for you.

Of coarse a seller will alway over value the house due to an emotional connection.Then when you go out take a repair analysis sheet with you and market down all of the repairs through out the houses.