Although they might sue you for it first and considering the ridiculous inventory they now have of 1300+ homes, mostly ones that aren't worth touching, even for $1 due to heavy damage and being in areas where the max possible value wouldn't cover the repairs needed, I bet they'll be doing more lawsuits and less foreclosure soon, who knows.

Your best bet is probably to find an older roofer as they are more likely to have experience with slate.

I have not physically been on the inside of the home.

But, an office or sitting area may be the better bet.

So, I'm thinking incident management and physical facilities management.There are many more aspects included in REI, which I'm not accounting for right now.

Yeah I bet he is!

I'm pretty handy but have never done one before so getting one as close to the same size will probably be my best bet....

Know your market, physically and financially.If I see a for sale sign in a yard and the owner is mowing his yard, with my skills I'll be talking to the guy and most likely I can lead him into talking about the house, usually they show it to me.

I would love to just buy 2-4unit properties with the money as down payments but i don't want to lock up his cash for the next 30 years which would require a cash out REFI and thats betting that enough renovations have been done to provide the money, i estimate on a 150k property it would take me about 10 years to pay him back his. 20% down payment at 10% interest (this being done using my cash flow ) this situation doesn't seem ideal to me...

My first vc meeting last year with the founder of a multi billion dollar fund said, "I have no idea even how to approach due diligence on this, the best thing may be is to bet on a couple horses and see who wins.".