Yes Detroit is one of the very rare cities that can comfortably deliver on the 2% rule if you have the right team walking with you hand in hand.

He rarely gets permits & has often been shut down & some of the work needs to be completely re-done.

If this place checks out and there is nothing you are missing or red flags then I would say go for it and figure out a way to lock it down because very rarely in my career have I seen a place for $150k with $3k in rent coming in where the owner wasn't dealing with a massive amount of BS. 

As to 70 miles away, I'd be interested to hear how rare a property this is that would be needed. 

I'm frankly surprised that your attorney suggested combining them.

If you put together good systems you can avoid that somewhat, but I can say that I deal with more problems on my one property in a C class neighborhood than I do on all of my other properties (which are in B class areas) combined. 

They complicate paperwork/taxes, and there is rarely a reason to sue if you are just starting and have highly leveraged properties. 

They're rarely available because people are booking vacation stays 6-12 months in advance.

I have an investment now where my net cash flow is more than my Mortgage (PITI), water, and utilities combined.

For rare occurrences it is unlikely any one house will burn down so they can spread the cost of rebuilding the one that does over 1,000 houses, not really doable with vacancy as most properties will become vacant at some point.