My best bet would be before making an offer etc to look up the properties and get a quick search of the headaches before right?

I would be willing to bet this!

That said, I bet there are incredible deals to be had potentially in the city neighborhoods and definitely in the more stable suburbs as well and given my family connections I believe it's an area we could potentially do well.

You bet.

When I arrived at the job on Monday, I see an open garage door and about 5 thousand dollars worth of tools just sitting there with the light on, ( i bet that looked wierd all night long in the culdesac for 3 solid nights.)

Conventional mortgages may be slower to close, but are significantly less expensive than hard money.I recommend partnering up with some private money.Offer:5% down (at least some of your skin in the game)6% preferred return50/50 profit split at the endI'll bet you can find a few investors immediately.

Sounds like your best bet might be to 2 of the income properties and pay cash for those. 10% interest and 4k in points is too much imho.

One of the columns is for whether or not permits are required. 

I think if you take the roof off that, the support columns aren't supporting much - might as well take them down too.

If you go for IKEA-cute finishes, not upscale DC townhome finishes,  I bet you can get it finished out relatively cheaply (and hopefully quickly) and find plenty of eager renters.