Since I'm not a lawyer and I don't know what state you're in, you'll need to find out if this property passed to this guy automatically because a living trust was in place, or if it needs to go through probate before he gets it, or if he was a joint owner with the sister.If all this is clean, then you should be able to buy it from the guy.

Option trading is a type of purchase (could be regular stocks, ETF, REIT, etc).

Sold them all by regular Warranty Deed, with title insurance.  

They often are naïve that many D neighborhoods investors can not even receive rent regularly. 

Because you described your tenants as "slob", I think you need to have a serious talk with them about maintaining the house clean and free of bugs.

Having someone change sheets, clean, organize, etc makes a lot of sense.

For anyone that has hired an employee to do your own construction work (1099 or regular) how do you handle contractor liability insurance?

But I offered $200 cash for keys and they are voluntarily gone leaving the property in a clean condition today.

Thanks JayIt's pretty tough pickings in the regular real estate market here.

Invest using dollar cost averaging, which means put a steady amount in on a regular basis.