You would need to hold it in an interest bearing account and pay them interest.

Bear in mind these are licensed agent who should have at least know to disclose and should be hammered.

I tell people that the volatility of the stock market is simply too much to bear, here you earn good steady returns and can sleep at night easy knowing that the occupany is there.

Denise D make sure it's in an interest bearing account while you're figuring out how to use it!

Thanks @Steve Babiak,  Transfer taxes can be a bear! 

I am opening up an 18 foot load bearing wall on the first floor and prefer to be safe and have a pros opinion on the appropriate materials to use for this task.

Still, please bear in mind that most properties I deal with are vacant lots, so most often the scenario of a returning “home” owner will not apply.However, under your wonderfully descriptive scenario, even such a home in Washington State wouldn’t hit my radar for another year.There are too many tax delinquent properties from any given county to sort thru, so I focus only on the most delinquent (at least two years) that have not yet had a foreclosure action filed against them. 

This might be a stupid question so bear with me.

Whether you are buying real estate, buying precious metals, buying stocks, buying mutual funds, buying companies, or giving someone else an interest bearing loan, the point at which you become an investor verses a gambler is when you are willing to put forth effort in ensuring that you have mitigated risk and taken advantage of all possible profits.  

Like it or not, politics has a huge bearing on our economy and THUS our real estate investments' success or failure.