He is currently renting the whole house out to a family whose houses had burned down.

But its power lies in the fact that you don't have to over pay for a deficient asset just to burn up 1031 funds. 

He's done everything you could imagine including flips, large development projects, acquiring properties through tax liens, foreclosures, buy and hold multi family, buying/foreclosing on notes, land flipping, syndication, buying land and selling it on a note, mobile home parks, storage units, subdivisions, etc.

Are they going to cover your house if an electrical fire burns it down due to unpermitted work?

You must tear out any damage, you must treat every inch to get rid of smoke smell, and finally piping or wiring may not have burned, but it may have melted and need to be replaced. 

That is a big cash burn!

Mobile friendly! 

That amount won't get you anywhere here unless you do some unique type of Investing like flipping penny lots or mobile home Investing

started at 45, used self-directed ROTH-IRA to buy 5 turnkey properties (all cash) summer 2012was just about to start looking at buying another property with the rental proceeds at the end of 2015, when I heard about syndicationbought into an office park, then a multi-family, then a parcel of raw land in wine country, and recently a self-storage placeall with my rental proceeds and IRA contributionslooking at mobile home parks for my next investment, hopefully soonalohasteve

The ones that get burned trying to make C, D areas with too much risk and they get burned.