I'll save the details but bottom line, after getting an engineering report and providing it to my lender, they said they would not be able to fund the deal unless the suggested repairs in the report were made.

We don't know where the top is now or how long it will last and we didn't know where the bottom was back then nor how long it would last. 

Purchase price: $40,000 Cash invested: $141,000 Sale price: $230,000 Rehabbed the interior & exterior of a 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom single family including changing the property from a top and bottom duplex to a single family home.

Bottom line, take a look at as big a picture as you can, fees, reviews and any other info you can gather from talking to them etc and go with your gut feeling. 

Whether some strategy is good or bad or neutral is going to depend on what you want to be true of it.  

Facebook is the bottom of the barrel as far as quality of responses goes.

We lived in it and completely remodeled it from top to bottom over a year or so.

If you keep things neutral and tasteful it should hold up and add value for resale or sublet down the line.

IT wasn't much, I think I bought a condo in 2005 for about $155K, I think its value peaked a little above that or so before the crisis, and then dropped down to maybe $135/$140K at the bottom of the crisis. 

From the renters perspective, I know having a hard floor of some type is preferred if a bottom story unit.