Study, study, study your drawings and make changes prior to the job starting it is far less expensive in the design stage than the construction phase. 

My question is are those just to stage the house for selling or do they sell with property.

You definitely know far more about this than I do at this stage and have relationships I would have to develop and I'm wondering what kind of return there is on this type of investment.I'm an experienced Internet marketer so I've always figured purchasing under-performing apartment complexes and then fixing and marketing them for higher occupancy would increase the value of the complex - so at that point I could sell it or just hold it for the cash flow.

If the family member did not deal with "why" the residence went into the foreclosure stage in the first place it's hard for them not to fall into that again.

But were are way early in the talk stage still..

I don't pay directly for mentorship, but I do buy lunch usually when I need my mentor's attention and experience.I see a lot of would be investors stuck in the analysis paralysis stage for way too long.

Any advice on how to position a subject to or lowering the price to the homeowner at this stage in the game?

so to start off and briefly describe my situation, i am in the stage of education myself and learning as much as possible about RE.

What we do know is that you are in the "asking what to do" stage, lean toward such advice and see your attorney, don't do anything without proper consultation.

And could just be a good learning experience in general.I recently bought a couple good books on flipping (J Scott's book has a chapter on this topic I think) that might shed some light, but my hunch is that in a good market, a staged, newly-remodeled house will almost sell itself.