A couple months ago I was looking at a triplex that came up for sale in a close suburb,   long story short despite suffering from long term poor management, needing substantial exterior repairs, and having damage and 2 vacant and gutted units left over from tenants-from-hell it ended up selling to somebody else for 30% over asking,  needing another 20% of the asking price (at least) in repairs.  

If you do, do a short-term lease that ends sometime in the sweet spot of Boston area rentals.- Spend some time thinking about how much to spend.

Responding shortly!

Life's too short for me to micro-manage the love life of my tenants.

I just don't see that as a viable short term option.

I have a few short-term goals I need to work on:Learn my market better.

If you keep on investing everything you make, you will short on cash to pay estimated tax each quarter. 

The landlord first threatened to deduct money from our deposit if the short bushes in the flowerbed died, so I started watering the flowerbed by manually turning on the irrigation system and turning it off ten or twenty minutes later.

I hope to contribute as much to the BP Community as it has to me in such a short amount of time.

And then get some short term financing for the repairs—- if you have an LOC,great!